


Storms and Saints

by tactfulGnostalgic



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Minor canon divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-10-24 03:48:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10733514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tactfulGnostalgic/pseuds/tactfulGnostalgic
Summary: Seven meditations on Vriska Serket and Terezi Pyrope.





	1. Kanaya

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the song by Florence and the Machine.

Kanaya thinks, at first, that Vriska is flushed for the girl. 

It’s painted all over her, bright as rust. Tucked in the way her lips soften the syllables in _Terezi,_ the distant, angry melancholy in her eyes. The way she never talks about the things they do together, like their history is a secret and a treasure shared between them and them alone; the tremor in her hand when she reaches for her FLARP gear amidst folds of red and teal silk. The way she says, when Kanaya asks about it, “She’s just some asshole I used to know,” in a way that makes it sound like an invocation of prayer. The way that Vriska’s never been big on physical contact, and bats away even a gentle shooshpap with an anger that doesn’t make sense. “Stop that shit,” she says. “I’m not fucking glass.” Like they’re not moirails, like it’s not Kanaya’s job to keep the glass parts of her safe and whole — and Kanaya doesn’t _want_ it to be her job, either, but somebody needs to do it, because otherwise somebody’s going to come along who doesn’t care about being gentle and Vriska will just — _break_.

Sometimes Kanaya thinks about what that would look like, and imagines a ship far out at sea, slipping beneath the waves. From a distance, you can’t hear the screaming, the snapping of the mast like bone, the crumple of architecture under a force of nature. From a distance, it looks peaceful. She imagines that Vriska would fall like that. Silently, and all at once. Kanaya hates thinking about these things but she does, anyway. Call it a taste for the macabre. 

Then she meets Terezi Pyrope, and she understands everything.

The girl’s sharp. Diamond-hard. Has a cruel tongue and a mean swing, sticks her fingers into people’s brains and wrenches them around to see what happens. She’s a kismesis’ wet dream, with her hands on all the right buttons to push and a sense for just how to nudge someone too far. Sharp elbows and wide hips. Teeth too sharp, horns too sharp, eyes too sharp for someone so young. 

She shows up on Vriska’s doorstep in the middle of a date with a wry, “I left Redglare’s outfit here,” and Kanaya thinks for a second that Vriska’s going to lunge for the jugular vein. There’s wildness in the spidergirl’s taut muscles, the flexing vein in her neck.

But Vriska just says, “Well, fine,” and lets Terezi in. And then, when Terezi’s trotting up the stairs, cane tucked under her arm because she’s got the house mapped in her mind, “Be quick, though. I’m kind of busy.” 

Terezi turns and only then seems to notice Kanaya, awkwardly curled in an armchair with a cup of tea balanced on one knee. “Hi,” Kanaya offers, feeling very warm and very much like a stranger.

“Hi,” Terezi says, grinning, and leans against the wall, arms folded. “Who’re you?”

“Kanaya Maryam. I’m Vriska’s moirail.” Vriska breathes in, out, stares out the window with a tense haughtiness that screams _panic_. “You?”

It’s not a lie, but rather a deliberate obfuscation of the facts, to suggest that she doesn’t know who Terezi is. That she didn’t know from the moment the girl swaggered in, glasses perched judiciously on the edge of her nose like Troll Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who she was. 

“Terezi Pyrope,” she says, and leaps forward, stabbing her hand out. “Vriska’s ex-FLARP partner. Maybe she’s complained about me before?” She never stops smiling. 

That’s the moment when Kanaya marks their relationship for black — Vriska, fuming in the doorway, and Terezi, oozing with charm — and she relaxes, a little bit. 

“A few times.”

“Lovely.” She shakes Kanaya’s hand. Her skin is dry and her nails are pointed. “Anyway, I’ll leave you be. Don’t let me disturb your pale party.” 

She salutes lazily in Vriska’s direction and skips up the stairs, cane clacking against the walls. Vriska stares at her shoes as its arrhythmic knocking fades into the hallways of the castle, and Kanaya takes a sip of tea, feeling not unlike a musclebeast on a thin sheet of ice. 

“So,” she says.

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

Kanaya looks at her moirail and something in the back of her throat aches. The girl’s profile is outlined against the window, backlit by effervescent with moonlight. Her hands are shoved in her pockets, her chin jutting up, one knee cocked, so careful; like a model, her, desperately trying to pull off a pose she’d seen in a magazine once. She razes the lawn before her castle with cruel eyes, angry eyes, and Kanaya looks at her and feels a tug behind her bloodpusher, a knot in the center of her chest that craves and craves and _craves._

Kanaya knows that the art of being selfless is not the failure to want things, but to want things and not take them. She knows, too, that Vriska is not thinking of her, outlined all beautiful and furious against the frail window. So she wants in silence.

Terezi comes tromping back down the stairs with a heap of clothes slung across one arm. “You haven’t moved the closets,” she remarks airily, and Vriska flinches.

“Why would I?”

“Variety? I don’t know. Seems like with this many rooms you’d lose stuff. Anyway.” Terezi spins on her heel and tosses Kanaya an amiable, two-fingered wave. “It was a pleasure, Ms. Minty Fresh. Maybe I’ll see you around.” Her lips curl back gleefully over her teeth. “But the odds don’t really suggest it.”

“You’re not funny,” Vriska spits. Kanaya flinches. 

“Fuck you. I’m brilliant.” Terezi claps Vriska on the shoulder and the latter girl sways like a willow bending to a breeze, choking on her own spittle. “See you later, Serket.” 

Vriska doesn’t say anything, but when Terezi pulls her hand away she bends toward her for a moment. Desire writes itself in the open lines of her body. Her nails bite her palms. Vriska watches Terezi the way Kanaya watches _her —_ desperately, and only when she’s not looking.

“So,” Kanaya says. “Are you two —”

“Nope.” Vriska tosses herself onto an armchair and busies herself by twirling a gold coin, produced from her pocket, between her fingers. “Not important.”

“I was only going to ask if the relationship between the two of you was —”

“Fussyfangs. _No._ ”

“Concupiscent,” Kanaya finishes, quietly, and then folds her hands in her lap. “What else do you want to talk about, then?”

“Eridan,” Vriska says firmly. “Let’s talk about him. What a dipshit. Hate him to death.” 

Kanaya’s fairly sure that Vriska’s feelings for Eridan have all the depth and complexity of a sheet of cardboard, but she acquiesces. In retrospect, this is the first sign that they’d have never worked, pale. A good moirail would’ve pressed. Maybe Kanaya isn’t selfless, after all, anyway. 

* * *

Later, Rose folds her fingers around the base of her horns and combs her fingers through the wiry knots of her hair, and says, “I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not, really, given that she doesn’t strike me as the kind to share. And I’m a jealous woman.”

“Your sympathies are noted,” Kanaya says drily, but can’t work up the energy to come up with anything more eloquent. “Wrong quadrant. For you, and her, anyway.”

“You’re being opaque, dear,” Rose says fondly. Kanaya hums a lazy assent. She remembers the ache in her neck — long gone, scabbed over, replaced by Rose, Rose with her soft human skin and clever human tongue — and Kanaya rubs her jugular mindlessly. She wonders where Vriska felt her loss. Rose doesn’t let her keep the thought in her head for long.


	2. Karkat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place before Rex Duodecim Angelus, while the trolls are preparing for their battle against the Black King.

It’s like herding fucking meowbeasts.

Actually, it’s worse than herding meowbeasts, because meowbeasts, unlike the feculent pieces of insurrectionist shit with which he is confronted on an hourly basis, do not have independent opinions or sentiments on how a party might go about defeating an insurmountable eldritch monster, and further, do not feel the need to voice these opinions at the top of their fucking lungs while their humble shepherd attempts to rein them in.

“Look,” he says, brandishing a finger in Eridan’s face. “Look, you grape-finned piece of watery shit —”

“Hey, now, _hey_ , now, I was just sayin’ —”

“Just _saying?_ ‘Just sayin’ my ass — talk on your own time, blubberfuck. I’m talking right now. This here piece of time? Mine. Exclusively.”

“I think you oughta be nicer to me, on account a’ you not havin’ a carp’s chance in the trenches of winnin’ anythin’ without —”

“Maybe I _would_ , since I wouldn’t have to take a hard pause in planning every _five minutes_ to deal with you whining — Kanaya, for fuck’s sake, get Tavros back in here, I’m not done, I’m taking a momentary interlude to vent, he should know the fucking difference —”

“To be fair,” she says mildly, rising from the table, “such distinctions are hard to differentiate without practice.”

“Yeah? And it’s hard to hold a group meeting without all the members of your _fucking_ group, so I guess we’re both beleagured fucking souls. Get Gamzee’s ass in here, too, I don’t care if you have to rope him in by the fucking horns.” 

“Yessir.” 

“Was that sarcastic?”

“Never,” she deadpans, and he scrubs the heel of his palm against his temple, resisting the urge to shout. She’s about the only person he can stand, nowadays, and he’s pretty sure she’s the only one who can stand him, either. Wouldn’t do to piss her off. 

“Thanks,” he mutters through gritted teeth. “At least one person has functional auditory canals. Anyway. Any of you dipshits have any new ideas?”

They’re gathered around a group of coffee tables roughly pushed together, twelve trolls stuffed into a tent far too small to fit twelve adolescent trolls. The Prospitian battle encampment was kind enough to provide them with separate living quarters, which is, if he’s being frank, probably the only reason they haven’t killed each other yet, but holding a strategy meeting is nigh impossible when your strategy table is built for creatures half your size. 

Nepeta raises her hand, tentatively.

He bites his tongue to avoid sighing. “Yes?”

“I think,” she mumbles, “uh. I think we should stop? For a while? Can we take a break?” 

His hand falls from his face and he plants it on the table, jabbing a finger at the battle map. The Dersite troops are signified by a collection of tiny black chesspieces, scattered a couple miles away from their camp. The jolt from his hand knocks three of them over. “No. We’re sitting in this hellhole until we have a good plan or we’re all dead of old age, and I don’t actually have that much of a fucking preference.” 

She wets her lips and avoids his eyes, which kind of hurts, actually. “I just thought,” she says meekly. “I just think — we’ve been here for hours, and — I don’t think we’re going to get anything done? Soon? So maybe we could take a break? Get some ideas?”

“What part of _no —”_

“She’s right,” Equius interrupts, and folds his arms. He’s got his _fuck-with-my-moirail-and-your-lowblood-ass-is-mine_ face going strong, and his biceps aren’t exactly belying the seriousness of the threat. “This is an excruciating and pointless task.”

Feferi nods. She’s wrapped around Sollux like she’s trying to perform interpersonal osmosis. It’s sickening and he looks pleased as fucking peaches. “It’s probubbly not healthy,” she chirps. “Why don’t we all take a recess? Come back in an hour.” 

“Fine,” Karkat says, pinching his nose. “Fine. Fine! Let’s take a break. Not like we’re even all here, anyway.” He spins from the table and shoves through the tentflap, almost ploughing over a poor Prospitian soldier with a handful of firewood.

They're fucking impossible. The minute he's got half of them paying attention, the other half are already gone, fucking off into their little feuds and spats. And of course, the only people who are actually capable of doing shit are never the ones who show up, and when they do show up, they're not inclined to listen to him, anyway. Kanaya's pretty much the only person who cares what he has to say, and who knows how long that'll last? He's got a better chance of taking on the Black King single-handed than he does making his friends into a competent army, who the fuck did he think he was kidding; of course, they'd probably be better off without him shouting at them, anyway, and it's not like he's doing much besides that, nowadays —

Kanaya’s just now approaching. She’s hauling Gamzee by the horn and he looks exquisitely uncomfortable, bleating, “Aw, shit, sister, don’t you go doin’ that, don’t go yankin’ on my curlies, I ain’t gonna run away nowhere —”

She remains unmoved by his pleas. Karkat’s proud of her.

“Is the meeting adjourned?” She’s the picture of professionalism and grace, with the horn of a troll twice her size grasped in one fist and her lipstick held delicately between two fingers in the other. She blinks expectantly when he gapes at her. God, he loves Kanaya.

“Yeah. Assholes couldn’t stay focused for more than half a minute. Equius started getting antsy and _nobody_ wants to be around when Equius is antsy.” He cranes his neck to see over the tents. “And where the fuck is Terezi?”

She hadn’t been to the last two strategy meetings, which is fucking ridiculous, given that she’s probably the only one among them who has half a decent grasp on strategy. He doesn’t pretend to be good at plotting troops and assigning roles; he’s a soldier, the guy who yells at people to get shit done. He doesn’t _know_ what it is they’re supposed to be doing. That’s her job. And she’s not fucking there. 

Kanaya reluctantly releases Gamzee’s horn, and he flips upright like a tightly wound spring. “You might check the courtyard,” she suggests, and fiddles with her lipstick. “Ah. She is currently engaged —”

He’s already started off. “Doing _what?”_ He clears a path through the Prospitians in his wake; his hands are balled at his sides, his steps heavy. 

“— you’d do better not to ask —”

It’s too late for that. He breaks through into the courtyard, a broad square of battlefield walled by rows of soldiers’ tents, barren and stained with bootsteps and dust and stains of something brownish red that Karkat supposes must be the carapacians’ blood; he’s never checked the color. Terezi stands in it, swords drawn, with Vriska opposite her — he should have guessed Vriska had something to do with her absences, because _of course she did_ — and the other girl’s got her dice cradled in one palm, and her blue pirate coat flapping behind her like a fucking cape. She looks like she’s cosplaying a fucking rainbow drinker regency novel. 

“What in the name of Bilious _motherfucking_ Slick do you shitheads think you’re doing?” 

The tip of Terezi’s sword lowers an inch and she sighs, lifting her face to the heavens. “Of course.”

Vriska whirls on him and sneers. Malignancy rolls off her in waves. “What do you think _you’re_ doing? This is private.” 

“Like fuck it’s private. What do you think you’re going to do? Kill each other? Before the goddamn battle? You wanna burn the food supply, too, or is one fantastically moronic decision enough for you?” She gets into his personal space and he reaches out and shoves her, which is difficult, given that she’s as big as a blueblood and twice as strong as him, easy, but she wasn’t expecting him to be that angry. That’s everyone’s mistake. You’d think that after long enough, they’d remember that he’s _always_ that angry.

“Better that than sitting around in your dumbass ‘strategy’ meeting, you pretentious fuck. Did you get anything done today? Yell at Nepeta some more? That’s an old favorite. I bet yelling at Nepeta is the most productive thing that’s happened all week.” She brushes off her coat where he touched it. He grabs fistfuls of his hair.

“Jesus _Christ_ — Terezi! Terezi, did you shit your good judgment out with your last meal?”

“She’s right,” Terezi points out, and it stings. Her face is still turned skywards, which doesn’t mean much, given that she can tell where he is just fine without looking at him, but it’s still disconcerting and he hates it. “How productive _was_ it, Karkat?”

“Not at all, without you, thanks! What are you even out here for? A petty vendetta? You’ve already fucking mauled each other, what more do you _want?”_ He spreads his hands, gesticulating wildly. Kanaya coughs behind him, and he ignores her with spectacular discipline.

“Karkat,” she says quietly. “Leave it.” 

“No! I will _not_ , leave it, thanks, because if you die in a fight with her you don’t come back! Dipshit!”

“I wouldn’t kill her,” Vriska scoffs.

“Bet you said the same thing to Aradia, may her soul rest in cybernetic sprite heaven. Terezi. Listen.” He steps forward, reaching out to her, intending to lay a hand on her shoulder — and Vriska’s shoulder connects with his side, sending him staggering. 

“Sorry. I’m clumsy.” A smile twists itself across her face, broadening when he touches his side gingerly. He bets there’ll be a bruise. _Bitch_.

“Vriska,” Terezi says. Warns. He’s grudgingly flattered that he merits some defense, at least, although she doesn’t seem to be particularly concerned about him taking a shoulder to the fucking neck.

“No, s’fine,” he says flatly. “Just an accident.” He eyes Vriska, his breath coming ragged and short. “Tavros gets into them all the time.” 

She lunges. He ducks under her arm and hears Terezi shout, _“Vriska,”_ but he’s already decaptchalogued his scythe and it feels so _good_ to see her leap away from the short, quick arc of his blade, just barely missing the tip of her left horn. She flings her die at the floor, and they explode into a volley of arrows, one of which whizzes through his right sleeve and almost grazes skin.

Then a blade appears under the crook of Vriska’s chin, Terezi’s steady hand at the end of it, and she says, “ _Stop it_ ,” clear and cold. The arrows drop and he considers dropping the scythe, too, but the warning kind of seems to be addressed specifically to Vriska, so —

“Karkat,” she adds, and he captchalogues the scythes. 

Kanaya’s hand falls on his shoulder. “If I may,” she says carefully. “I believe now would be a good time for me and Karkat to have a private discussion about matters concerning Prospitian battle formations, which I think could well benefit from his expertise.” 

Terezi nods. “Thank you, Kanaya. You have excellent timing.” 

“I do my best.” She hooks her arm through his and hauls him along, and he suddenly understands how she managed to haul Gamzee halfway across the encampment. Her grasp on his arm feels like a handcuff made of fucking cement. 

“Fuck you. I can walk by myself.”

“Undoubtedly. Doubtful, however, that you would elect to walk where I prefer you. So here we are.” She moves with long strides until they’ve crossed the boundary of the courtyard, and are out of earshot. Terezi’s having words with Vriska, low, sharp, murmured words, and he itches to go back and either punch both of them in their smug secretive faces or plead with Terezi to actually _talk_ to him, for Chrissake.

Kanaya loosens her grip when they’re out of eyeshot and he wrenches free. “Fuck you,” he repeats, faintly remembering his reasons for not pissing her off and subsequently refusing to give a shit. “I had things under control —”

“If by ‘under control’ you meant ‘hurtling toward a swift and bloody end,’ then I suppose you’re right. I sincerely apologize if I threw a wrench in your plans by saving your life.” Her voice is as steely as her grip. She crosses her arms and watches him with judgment in her eyes, and he scratches the back of his neck, scuffs at the ground with the tip of his shoe.

“Wasn’t gonna die.” 

“If you earnestly believe she would have killed Terezi, it’s laughable to say she wouldn’t have killed you.”

“I wasn’t exactly going to stand there and _let_ her. I’m not an idiot.” He feels like a wriggler. She’s not his lusus, for fuck’s sake, but he feels guilty anyway, like he’d been caught sneaking out for an illicit daytime encounter. 

“And Terezi was?” An eyebrow, sardonically quirked. A smirk, exasperatedly curling at the corners of her mouth. It’s hard to stay mad at her when she’s so damn reasonable about everything.

“Different circumstances.” He stuffs his hands in his pockets.

“Ah.” She unfolds her arms and twists at her own fingers, methodically cracking each knuckle. “Am I wrong in understanding — I hope I have not interfered —”

“What are you talking about?”

“Ashen romance is, at times, difficult to parse — from an outsider’s perspective, albeit even one experienced in such endeavors, it did appear to be platonic —”

_“What?_ No. No, no, no —”

“Although I would advise you to be careful in your more public engagements, as from experience, many do not understand the subtle nuances of —”

“I cannot express to you the sheer degree of _not fucking interested_ I am in that kind of relationship, Kanaya, I really, actually lack the fucking words —”

A clash of steel on steel shatters the quiet of their whispered argument, and he spins around. Kanaya grabs him by the arm to keep him from sprinting back onto the courtyard, and in retrospect, that was probably a good idea; still, he manages to haul her close enough that they can see what’s going on, and he can just hear them talking, still quiet, but not so quiet as before. 

Terezi’s sword is laid over Vriska’s, which is a two-handed broadsword tinged cerulean blue. It’s fucking enormous, but the slim line of Terezi’s blade seems to be keeping it down. He doubts that Vriska’s ever trained in swordfighting, anyway. She doesn’t have the discipline.

“I told you,” Terezi’s saying. “Don’t try it.” 

“Why not? Why not get it out. C’mon, c’mon. Hit me. _Hit_ me. Make me feel it, c’mon.” 

Karkat blinks and Kanaya’s hand stiffens. “Ah,” he says. She clamps a hand over his mouth. Her gaze is trained on the courtyard, wide-eyed.

“It isn’t worth it.” 

“Why not? Why not, let’s do it, c’mon, c’mon, _c’mon_ —” Vriska disengages and keeps whining, with increasing volume. “You wanna hit me, so _do_ it! Make me fucking sorry! You’re not doing _shit_ just staring at me like somebody killed your goddamn puppy every time you think I’m not fucking looking, so just _do_ it already, I can’t take this fucking anticipatio—”

Terezi plants the tip of her sword in the hollow of Vriska’s neck in a movement so fast Karkat can’t even track her while she does it, only afterwards realizing where she is and what’s happened. Vriska doesn’t have a chance to react before her life’s cradled in Terezi’s hands. The silver rests bright and sharp against the skin of the troll’s throat. Threatening. Merciful. It’s spades as fuck.

“That’s why,” she says crisply, and removes the blade. 

Vriska’s dumbfounded for a beat, and then springs back into complaining. “Gimme a shot at it, then, in a fair fight, y’know, I’ll give you a run for your money —”

Terezi barks a laugh. “A fair fight?”

“Well, whatever, actually hit me, then, don’t just pretend to. Hit me. Hit me.” Vriska spreads her arms and drops the sword. It hits the ground with a _thunk_ and shatters back into eight die. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” Terezi shoves her blade into the dust at her feet. “That’s not the way we do things, anymore.”

“Why _not?_ ” 

“We’re better than that!”

“When did you get better than that? Better than me? You’re not better — you think _Karkat_ is gonna think less of you for kicking my ass? Think you’re gonna spoil your pristine reputation by fucking _me_ over, shitting on _me?_ You think anyone’s gonna give a _shit_ what happens to me? Do it! Stop being such a fucking _coward_ , Redglare, and just _fucking —”_

Vriska’s screaming by the time Terezi lays a cut across her left thigh, a quick, easy slice, dropping the other girl to one knee and coating the edge of her sword with blue. The wound scars and fades within ten seconds of its dealing. After fifteen, the only sign that anything happened is a jagged tear in Vriska’s jeans. 

Vriska remains on her knees. Her eyes are like dinner plates. Terezi looks down at her for a long time, carrying a hard and unreadable expression, and then drops her sword.

“Neophyte Redglare,” she says, softly, calmly,“was a Pre-Expansion Era legislacerator responsible for the arrest and trial of Spinneret Mindfang, a Pre-Expansion Era pirate charged with theft, treason, and murder. She was murdered by her own jury.” Her fingers twitch towards Vriska and she pins them back against her side. “I am not her. Never confuse me for her again.” 

Vriska’s jaw works as she tries to speak. “That hurt,” she says, bewildered. Terezi contemplates her for another beat and then sighs. 

“That was the intention,” she remarks, and stoops to pick up her sword.

Vriska’s hand darts out and grasps Terezi by the elbow, hauling her down until their faces are close. She kisses her with all the gentility of a starving musclebeast — bruisingly, with a greedy mouth and greedy hands. Terezi, far from doing the reasonable thing and shoving her away, remains still and slants her mouth open to receive it, resting four fingers lightly on the line of Vriska’s jaw. 

When she pushes Vriska away, her hair is mussed. She sheathes her sword. “You like the strangest things,” she sighs, and it’s startlingly plaintive. 

Vriska’s smile, from a distance, looks as real as juggalo facepaint. “Pot, meet hot beverage crucible,” she mumbles, wiping saliva from the corner of her mouth.

“Mm. They’re black, isn’t that the joke?”

“Works for me,” Vriska says, uncharacteristically genial, and too tremulous to be as casual as her body language would suggest.

Terezi’s face turns from Vriska, to the sky, to her own feet, and she rolls her shoulders like she’s trying to shed a heavy coat. Exhales sharply. Wordless, she turns and marches off the courtyard.

Kanaya hauls Karkat away even as he’s taking a step towards her. “Wait,” he objects. “Wait, hold on — I just want to —”

“Talk to her,” Kanaya finishes, expectant. “No.”

“What the fuck. I’m not going to say anything, I’ll just ask —”

“There is no good way to end that sentence, Karkat, so I suggest you do not.”

He scowls. “I was just going to —”

She turns on him. Her yellow irises glow somber and placid. “You will not ask,” she tells him. “Don’t. Please.”

“Why _not?”_ He knows he sounds petulant. He doesn’t care. It’s his business to make sure the group is efficient, isn’t it? Which, by proxy, makes it his business to —

Kanaya grabs him by the collar to hold him still, force him to look at her. “You will not,” she repeats. There’s something heavy and mournful lurking behind her eyes, something hard and sad and complicated, but not confused. He understood nothing about that encounter. Kanaya understood everything. And apparently he doesn’t get to understand anything at all. 

He swallows and shakes off her hands. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, fine. I won’t.”

“Promise me.”

“I won’t,” he snaps. “Christ. Give me some credit.” 

Slowly, she steps back and bows her head. “Thank you,” she says. “It is — a delicate situation.”

“I fucking noticed.”

“You don’t understand,” she entreats. “It is more delicate than you or I have business in. It is —”

“No, don’t bother. It’s whatever.” He waves his hand sharply, probably demonstrating more anger with the situation than he strictly meant to, but who cares. He starts walking back to the strategy tent. “Whatever. Really.” 

“Karkat. It’s delicate,” she repeats. “Very —”

“Delicate. Yeah, I heard.”

—Terezi’s sword, cutting shallow into thick grey skin, her face wrinkled like she felt something _genuine_ instead of wearing that dumbass legislacerator’s smirk, for once, actually looking furious, for once— 

Delicate. The situation is delicate. 

The next time he sees Terezi, he keeps his head down, and he doesn’t ask. 


	3. Dave

GC: H3Y COOLK1D  
GC: H3Y COOLK1D  
GC: H3Y COOLK1D  
GC: H3Y  
GC: H3Y  
GC: H3Y  
GC: H3Y  
GC: H3Y  
GC: H3Y  
GC:  
GC:  
GC:  
GC:  
GC: H3Y  
GC: H3Y  
GC: H3Y  
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GC: H3Y  
GC:  
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GC:  
GC: H3Y  
TG: jesus christ  
TG: what  
GC: H3Y!!  
TG: hey  
TG: hi whatever i think you just blew like half my data  
TG: so thanks for that i guess  
TG: also kind of fuck you  
TG: not that it matters  
TG: i think were on infinite minutes out here  
TG: still an ass thing to do though  
GC: WH4T 4R3 TH3S3 "1NF1N1T3 M1NUT3S"  
GC: HOW DO3S ON3 4CQU1R3 TH3M  
TG: if i knew or gave a shit id tell you  
TG: but all cards on the table i a) dont and b) dont  
GC: >:L  
GC: OK4Y  
TG: so whats the big deal  
TG: im kind of ass deep in monsters here  
GC: 1TS 4BOUT  
GC: W41T  
GC: HOW D33P 1S 4SS D33P  
TG: i dunno  
TG: give or take 50 percent of nose deep  
GC: S4Y 1T 1N COMMON 4LT3RN14N D4V3  
TG: k on account of having no fuckin idea what that is im going to break this down in laymans terms  
TG: a brother cant wave a sword around here without getting showered in grist  
TG: take a step and boom 20 echelevels  
TG: its like the universe is conspiring to make me look even more badass than i already do  
GC: DUB1OUS  
GC: TH3 UN1V3RS3 R4R3LY CONSP1R3S TO M4K3 4NYON3 LOOK 4NYTH1NG BUT R1D1CULOUS  
GC: 4S YOU DO WH3N YOU 4R3 DO1NG 4LL THOS3 B4CKFL1PS 4LL OV3R TH3 PL4C3 FOR NO 4PP4R3NT R34SON  
GC: T3LL M3 D4V3  
GC: WH4T PURPOS3 DO THOS3 B4CKFL1PS S3RV3  
GC: WH4T STR4T3G1C V4LU3 DO YOU G41N FROM THOS3 FR3QU3NT P3R1ODS OF D1SOR13NT4T1ON 4ND L4CK OF L3V3R4G3  
GC: WH4T K1ND OF 1MP4CT 4R3 YOUR FR4NKLY US3L3SS 4CROB4T1CS H4V1NG ON YOUR 3N3M13S 1 WOND3R  
GC: UNL3SS YOUR G4MB1T 1S TO C4TCH TH3M BY SURPR1S3 WH1L3 TH3Y 4R3 L4UGH1NG 4T YOUR TOMFOOL3RY  
GC: WH1CH 1S 4DM1TT3DLY SHR3WD 4ND DUB1OUS  
GC: BUT UNL1K3LY TO SUCC33D G1V3N TH3 STO1C N4TUR3 OF MOST 1MPS  
TG: let me put it this way  
TG: have you ever met a badass who didnt do backflips  
TG: no  
TG: didnt think so  
GC: YOU 4R3 CORR3CT  
GC: G1V3N TH4T T3CHN1C4LLY  
GC: 1 H4V3 N3V3R M3T MYS3LF  
GC: >:] >:] >:]  
TG: really  
GC: W3LL  
GC: 1 GU3SS T3CHN1C4LLY 1 H4V3 1NT3R4CT3D W1TH MYS3LF 1N CROSSCHRONOLOG1C4L M3MOS B3FOR3  
GC: SO P3RH4PS YOU 4R3 R1GHT  
GC: SURPR1S1NG 4S 1T WOULD B3  
TG: right right  
TG: so was there actually any point to this whole thing  
TG: wanna manipulate me into doing some more fucked up shit to past and future daves or are you here for the scintillating conversation  
GC: TO B3 HON3ST 1 4M ST1LL D3C1D1NG  
GC: 4LSO DONT TH1NK YOU C4N 3SC4P3 TH1S CONV3RS4T1ON 4BOUT F4UX B4D4SS3RY BY CH4NG1NG TH3 SUBJ3CT D4V3  
TG: conceded conceded  
TG: can we put a pin in it though  
GC: TH3 COUNS3LORS PL34 1S 4CKNOWL3DG3D 4ND GR4NT3D  
GC: CONS1D3R YOURS3LF R3L13V3D  
GC: >:]  
TG: sweet  
GC: UNFORTUN4T3LY YOU 4R3 R1GHT TO SUSP3CT 4LT3RN4T3 MOT1V3S TO M3 CONT4CT1NG YOU  
GC: 1N TH4T 1 W4NT3D TO 4SK 4BOUT TH3 OTH3R TROLLS WHO M4Y OR M4Y NOT H4V3 B33N CONT4CT1NG YOU  
TG: whaddya wanna know  
TG: they havent actually been doing much  
TG: besides epically failing at rap  
GC: 1 SUPPOS3 YOU H4V3NT B33N T4LK1NG TO H3R TH3N  
TG: sure sure lets just play the pronoun game until we entice a question out of this poor ignorant motherfucker  
TG: make him play into your dumbass socratic game  
GC: TH1RD P3RSON DO3SNT SU1T YOUR M3G4LOM4N14 D4V3  
GC: 1TS 4 TOUCH OV3RDON3  
TG: yeah well megalomania doesnt suit your dipshittery  
TG: its a touch overdone  
GC: >:/  
TG: yeah i know ive done better gimme a break  
TG: anyway who is her  
GC: H3R N4M3 1S  
GC: VR1SK4  
TG:  
TG: mmhmm  
TG: was i supposed to imagine a dramatic pause there or are you just distracted because its not super clear over pesterlog  
GC: W3LL TH3R3 W4S *GO1NG* TO B3 4 DR4M4T1C P4US3 1F YOU H4D JUST S4T T1GHT 4ND W41T3D FOR 1T COOLK1D  
GC: 4NYW4Y  
GC: VR1SK4 PROB4BLY H4SNT T4LK3D TO YOU 4NYW4Y  
GC: SH3S TH3 K1ND OF P3RSON YOU R3M3MB3R T4LK1NG TO  
TG: reeeeally  
TG: whydya wanna know about her  
GC: 1 JUST W4NT3D TO W4RN YOU 4G41NST H3R  
GC: SH3 1S 1NT3NT ON PL4Y1NG SOM3 K1ND OF G4M3 W1TH YOU 4ND JOHN  
GC: 4ND 1 D1S4PPROV3 OF H3R M3THODS  
TG: reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaallllllly  
TG: playing some kind of game with me and john huh  
TG: wonder what being the subject of manipulation is like  
TG: cant fuckin imagine really  
TG: gotta be wild  
TG: hey tz whats it like  
GC: 1 COULDNT S4Y  
GC: N3V3R H4PP3N3D TO M3  
GC: 1 L1K3 TO ST4Y ON TH3 OTH3R S1D3 OF TH3 PUPP3T33RS STR1NG  
GC: >:]  
TG: right right  
TG: course you do  
TG: anyway  
TG: what should i be lookin out for with this one  
GC: SH3S T3RR1BL3 4T M4N1PUL4T1ON 4CTU4LLY  
GC: 1 M34N SH3 H4S N3V3R ONC3 SUCC3SSFULLY M4N1PUL4T3D SOM3ON3 W1THOUT 4CT1V3LY FORC1NG TH3M TO DO WH4T SH3 W4NTS  
GC: SO 1T SHOULD NOT B3 H4RD TO W4RD H3R OFF  
GC: BUT SH3 1S 4GGR3SS1V3 4BOUT WH4T SH3 W4NTS  
GC: 4ND SH3 W1LL NOT T4K3 K1NDLY TO M3 T3LL1NG YOU 4BOUT H3R  
GC: OR M4YB3 SH3 W1LL  
GC: 1TS H4RD TO T3LL WH3TH3R H3R 3GOM4N14 OR H3R SOC14L 4NX13TY 1S GO1NG TO K1CK 1N ON 4NY G1V3N D4Y  
GC: ROLL OF TH3 D1C3 R34LLY  
TG: ok so when i said  
TG: what should i look out for  
TG: you heard  
TG: lets talk psychological profile  
GC: 1 4M JUST TRY1NG TO H3LP YOU  
GC: J33Z D4V3  
GC: W4Y TO B3 4N 4SSHOL3  
TG: hahaha ok  
TG: dont fuck w vriska got it  
TG: any other helpful advice  
GC: 1F SH3 DO3S T4LK TO YOU 4SK H3R  
GC: 4SK H3R WH3R3 SH3 1S W1TH M3 1N TH3 T1M3L1N3  
GC: TH3N COM3 T4LK TO M3  
TG: uhhh ok  
TG: will doozey  
TG: side question:  
TG: why  
GC: 1LL T3LL YOU WH3N 1T H4PP3NS  
GC: JUST DONT TRY 4ND 3NG4G3 W1THOUT MY H3LP  
GC: 1V3 4LW4YS B33N PR3TTY MUCH TH3 ONLY ON3 WHO C4N K33P 4 L1D ON H3R  
GC: 4ND 1 DONT R34LLY 3NJOY DO1NG 1T 4NYMOR3  
GC: BUT 1 W1LL DO 1T   
GC: 1F YOU N33D M3 TO  
TG: well hey dude thanks  
TG: you almost sounded sincere for a minute there  
GC: NO 1 D1DNT  
TG: you totally did  
GC: D1D NOT  
TG: totally did  
GC: 1 MOST C3RT41NLY D1D NOT  
TG: totally  
GC: DONT YOU D4R3 S3ND TH4T N3XT M3SS4G3 D4V3 1 KNOW WH4T 1T 1S  
TG: did  
GC: STUNN1NG RH3TOR1C FROM COUNS3LOR STR1D3R  
GC: >:[  
TG: hahahaha  
TG: you were totally sincere  
TG: whats with that  
GC: F4SC1N4T1NG  
GC: 1TS L1K3 YOU 4CTU4LLY B3L13V3 1M GO1NG TO 4NSW3R TH4T QU3ST1ON

* * *

He forgets the conversation pretty easily. It’s not a particularly memorable one, anyway, out of the hundreds that he has with her, and he pretty much forgets all about it until they’re standing on a meteor next to a girl in a traffic cone tunic and blue butterfly wings, and Terezi calls her ‘Vriska,’ and it hits him like a bucket to the face that he’s heard the name before.

Dave doesn’t make a point of interacting with people. Letting people come to you, that’s the way to do it. Less of a hassle. Also a very convenient excuse for abating social anxiety, but in terms that he’s willing to acknowledge — just less of a hassle, really. So he doesn’t really talk to Vriska, at all, and almost forgets that she’s there, except for the fact that Terezi won’t leave her alone and hasn’t hung out with him once, after three months, and that’s kind of a drag, you know, not because he’d expected they’d spend _all_ the time together, but because he’d figured that they were kind of friends, at least to the point where she’d toss him a ‘hello’ or two once in a while —

Karkat tells him to leave it alone. He doesn’t understand why _Karkat,_ of all people, is advocating isolationism here, because Karkat’s the last person he’d figure would leave _anything_ alone. But apparently not, because they’re sitting together in the weird science-lab-living-room thing that they’ve built out of chairs and alchemizers, and he’s got his earbuds in and Karkat’s nose is buried so deep in a novel he could snort crack off the pages, and once his playlist finishes Dave can’t figure out anything to say because Karkat’s not talking and usually in their conversations Dave gets to chill and let Karkat do most of the talking. So he says, “Wonder where Terezi is,” because Dave Strider’s aptitude for tact is about the same as Karkat Vantas’ aptitude for subtlety, divided by two.

Karkat shakes his head, not looking up. “Vriska,” he says, as if that explains everything.

“Oh, yeah. When’s the last time you saw them? I saw them a day ago. It’s been a while. You’d figure that we’d see each other more than we do. Y’know. Seeing as we’re on the same meteor. And shit.”

“And shit,” Karkat repeats drily. “I saw them yesterday. They were fucking with the alchemizer, trying to make God knows what. Don’t bother them.”

“Why not?” Dave’s leg starts bouncing. He eyes it resentfully. Having conversations in person makes it so much harder to bluff, it’s not fucking fair.

“They’re doing weird plotting shit. If you leave them alone, they won’t pull you into it.” He’s unusually calm about Dave asking questions, although maybe he’s just more relaxed than usual because of his dumb novel. Usually he’ll blow up after Dave starts pressing about Terezi. Probably some tender ground there that Dave doesn’t know about. Doesn’t wanna know about. Troll drama is too fucking complicated.

“Are they, like.” Dave tries to understand his own question. “One of your shitty squares?”

The book snaps shut and Dave tries to hide a grin. Quadrants remain tender ground, apparently.

“Those ‘shitty squares’ compose a sophisticated system of codifying interpersonal connection, _David,_ the likes of which your shitty species could never attempt to comprehend, much less adopt —”

“Way to not answer the question,” he drawls. He kicks up his feet on the coffee table, knocks over one of Rose’s old coffee mugs, and tries to play it off as intentional by nudging the mug off the table entirely. It shatters.

Karkat contemplates the shards forlornly. “That was my mug.”

“Oh, man. It’s a shame we don’t have any kind of replication system that could produce an exact copy of all your posses— oh, wait.”

“ _You_ try to alchemize a personalized crab mug, dipshit. What are the basic principles of a crab?”

“Still haven’t answered the question.”

Karkat sets the book on the table, gingerly, avoiding the puddle of cold troll coffee sludge. His mouth sets itself into a firm line, and he avoids Dave’s eyes. “I don’t know,” he says. “Probably.”

“Which one?”

He rolls his eyes. “What part of ‘I don’t know’ is unclear? Is it the ‘don’t’? I imagine you hear a fucking lot of that, Dave, I don’t know how it could be unfamiliar.”

“Whatever, man, I just wanna know if I’m stepping on any toes by asking Terezi out.” He’s lying. He doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Texas of asking Terezi out, even if he _could_ find her nowadays, and he doesn’t really want to date her, anyway. Somewhere in between her deciding not to talk to him for three months and running away with her childhood bestie to the unsavory depths of a space rock he’d kind of dropped the crush. 

Karkat’s shoulders hunch over his neck and he folds his arms quickly. “Yeah,” he says flatly. “Yeah, it’d step on a couple of fucking toes.”

“Which toes? Your toes?” Dave folds his own arms, gets the feeling that it doesn’t look half as decisive as when Karkat does it, unfolds them again. “You want one of her squares?”

“ _Quadrants._ I know you know the word, I can’t actually believe that you’re childish enough to pretend you don’t —”

“But do you, though?”

Karkat rolls his eyes. The yellow of his sclera doesn’t look as weird after three months’ exposure, and almost seems normal, actually, if Dave doesn’t think about it too much. Not like he’d ever been all that big on eye contact, anyway.

“No,” he says, finally. “Kind of did, once, but. I was a dumbass. Didn’t work out.”

“Were you ever. _Actually._ Like.” Dave holds up his hands, makes a square with his pointers and thumbs, like a cameraman angling up a shot.

Karkat’s eyebrows furrow. “What kind of shitty diamond is that?”

“No. Any of them. The fucking one, or the hatefucking one, or the three-way hatefucking, or the —”

“I cannot believe. You’ve watched _In Which A Pair of Adolescents Enter A Hasty Kismesissitude Disguised As A Matespritship To Appease One Partner’s Lusus So That Their Moirail May Enter A Matespritship With The Moirail of The Other Kismesis —_ ”

“Your titles suck ass, my dude.”

“You know it’s more than ‘hatefucking’! You _know!”_

Dave hides a grin behind his hand. “So were you?”

Karkat scowls. “No,” he says. “And fucking leave it, too. We weren’t anything. Just don’t ask her out, okay? It’d be shitty. We’ve already got one couple macking on each other all fucking over on this goddamn rock, I don’t want to have to worry about catching you investigating her tonsils around every fucking corner.” He picks up his book with a lot more agitation than it probably merits. “And she probably wouldn’t even say yes. She and Vriska have been playing quadrant hopscotch for years.”

“So what are they now?”

“Fuck if I know! Fuck if anyone knows! Fuck if _they_ know. Leave it.” Karkat seems to be in an Actual Bad Mood, now, so Dave does what he wants. It stops being fun when he’s actually mad.

“Fine,” Dave concedes. “Whatever.” He twists and sticks his feet in Karkat’s lap. Karkat makes a small noise of irritation but doesn’t actually object, just lifts his book and settles his arms over Dave’s feet. Dave wriggles closer into the couch.

* * *

He meets Terezi after five months without speaking to her, at 3:00 A.M., Austin time. He’s never left Austin time. It hasn’t fucked with his sleeping schedule or circadian whatevers because even when he lived in Austin his biological clock was pretty fucked, and he and Rose are pretty much nocturnal at this point anyway, but he’s still surprised to see her, not just because it’s 3:00 A.M., but because it’s _Terezi_.

“Uh,” he says. “Hi.”

The kitchen-area glows fluorescent from the weird overhead lighting and reflects on the glossy grey tile, making the room look like something out of a videogame that hasn’t finished rendering yet. She scrubs a hand over her mouth, mumbles, “Hi, Dave,” and ambles past him for the coffeemaker.

“Didn’t know you drank coffee,” he says, breaking his ‘don’t talk to others unless they talk to you’ rule, because it’s Terezi. Being the exception to rules is her M.O. Besides, he doesn’t think she ever found him all that cool to begin with. Seeming lame in front of her doesn’t seem like a huge loss.

“Uh huh.” She tosses some grounds in lazily, with blunt, uncoordinated movements. She’s wearing a pair of baggy sweatpants and a stain of something purple glares at him from the ankle. He tries to remember which troll is the purple one, with disappointing results. Wasn’t there that one juggalo asshole, back at the beginning? Dave hasn’t seen him in forever. Maybe he died. Wouldn’t be the strangest thing to happen on this goddamn meteor.

“So.” He’s not in the habit of pushing conversations that obviously don’t want to happen, but apparently he’s going to push this one. Dave always enjoys watching himself make a bad decision. It usually happens when he’s talking to someone in person. This further supports his hypothesis that all important conversations should happen over Pesterchum, where people have a modicum of goddamn control over how they present themselves. “You and Vriska been doing anything lately?”

He shoves his nose into his mug of coffee to hide his grimace. Terezi tosses a sniff his way, an almost cursory examination of his person, and then pulls out two mugs from the cabinet. “Some stuff.” She pours two cups and roots around in the fridge for some milk. “Planning. Talking. You know.” Seeming to realize that she hasn’t been offering a whole lot by way of conversation, she adds, “You and Karkat been doing anything lately?”

Dave is spectacularly unprepared for the question. “What. No. No, haven’t. I haven’t seen him in a while, actually. What’s he doing, nowadays?”

She sighs, sets the milk on the counter, and reaches for Dave’s arm. He tenses, unnecessarily, because all she does is pluck a short black hair from his shirt and wave it slowly before his eyes. “Sure, Coolkid,” she notes, almost smug, and drops it on the table in front of him.

“Doesn’t prove anything.”

“And a bloody blade doesn’t prove a murder, but it’s enough to convict.” She pours a splash of coffee in both mugs, reaches for the sugar.

“Is that some kind of weird death-lawyer saying on your planet? Do you have those?” He rubs his thumb across his mug rhythmically. He wishes for a pair of headphones. He wasn’t ready for this conversation. Five months they haven’t said a word to each other, and now he’s talking about goddamn aphorisms.

“Of course we have sayings, Dave. They’re a basic staple of linguistic development.”

“Well, if you don’t have rap, and you don’t have parents, Christ knows what else your society missed —”

He trails off when she doesn’t bother with a repartee, doesn’t bother to snap back with some quippy retort about human underdevelopment or Alternian supremacy. She just shovels sugar into one of the mugs, leaves the other untouched, and puts the package back on the shelf. Casual. Tired.

“You, uh.” He coughs. His leg starts jiggling. “You okay?”

He’s shit at this. He should get Karkat. Or Rose. They know how to grill someone on emotional shit. They do, in fact. Frequently. _He’s_ good at — well — fuck, he and Terezi always got along because they _didn’t_ talk about this shit. But she seems fucked up. She seems _really_ fucked up, actually, and he wonders if it’s something to do with Vriska, if he needs to kick someone’s ass — he really hopes he doesn’t need to kick anyone’s ass —

“Fine,” she says numbly.

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Course I am.”

He’s been on the opposite side of this conversation so many times that he _knows_ she’s lying, knows because he’s read her lines the same way she’s reading them now to a hundred different people, to Rose, to Karkat, to John, to Jade, to pretty much everybody who ever gave a shit enough to ask. But he forgets how the rest of it goes — can’t remember if he’s supposed to press or let go, if he’s supposed to back down after two tries or keep blundering on. He’s really fucking bad at this.

“Well. If you need anything,” he starts. Stops. “You can, uh. Ask me. Or whatever. We don’t talk much anymore, but. If you want to rant. About shit. I’m still here? Or, y’know. Whatever.” He busies himself taking a long drag of coffee.

Her hands tighten on the mugs, and then her shoulders — her shoulders start _shaking._

One cup slips through her hands and cracks on the floor. She sets the other down and hunches over the counter. He knows the little tremble of the spine, knows the way her head curls into her chest, and he knows what it looks like when someone tries not to look like they’re crying. _Pro tip,_ he thinks, absently, with the part of his mind that isn’t horrified and terrified and desperate to run from the room and get someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing. _Wear dark glasses._

“Shit,” he says, louder than he means to. “Shit — Terezi? Do you need — I can get — I didn’t mean to like, guilt trip you, or anything — sorry, I’m not pissed at you, I’m serious, I don’t give a shit — ah, fuck.”

There’s a quick footfall in the doorway and Vriska appears. She’s not wearing her God Tier anymore, but is decked out like Terezi, in jeans and a ratty flannel that looks like it was last washed before Dave’s universe existed. She takes it all in quickly — Terezi, Dave, the coffee, all of it — and strides past Dave with impeccable disinterest, making a beeline for Terezi.

”Hey,” she says. “Hey. Look. Look.” She puts one hand on Terezi’s shoulder, rubs, and hovers at her side. “Hey. _Hey._ ”

Terezi looks up, scrapes at tear tracks under her glasses. Rests her hand over Vriska’s.

They watch each other. For a while, actually. They don’t seem to notice how long it’s been.

Rather, Terezi doesn’t _watch_ Vriska so much as she turns her face toward the other girl’s, and kind of keeps it there, and gives the impression of granting Vriska the whole of her attention, which Dave has _never_ seen her give anyone, before.

He feels dumb and obtrusive and weirdly out of place for someone that both of them are fervently ignoring, and he tries to slip out of the chair without scraping the legs on the tile. Like many an attempt and effort of Dave Strider, it doesn’t work. The chair screeches like a fucking monkey and he craves a swift death.

Terezi coughs and shrugs off Vriska’s hand. “Sorry, Dave,” she announces. “Dunno what happened.”

“It’s. Uh. It’s okay. Don’t sweat it. Um. If y’all do that. Sweat, I mean. Do you?”

Vriska gives him a deeply bemused look.

“Don’t answer that,” he orders them, as if either of them planned to. “I can live without — I’m going to leave.”

“Good decision,” Vriska advises him. Terezi chokes out a laugh.

“Anyway,” he says. “Uh. Sorry.” He scrambles through the door, leaving his coffee behind.

* * *

TG: so uh  
TG: i dont wanna beat the dead hoofbeast or  
TG: or anything  
TG: but  
TG: you and vriska  
TG: youre  
TG: youre ok right  
TG: i didnt like  
TG: fuck it up or anything  
GC: NO  
GC: YOU D1DNT FUCK 4NYTH1NG UP  
GC: 1F 4NYTH1NG 1M SORRY FOR B31NG SUCH 4 M3SS  
GC: YOU JUST R3M1ND3D M3 OF SOM3 TH1NGS TH4T 1 SHOULDNT H4V3 DON3  
GC: N4M3LY  
GC: 1GNOR1NG YOU  
GC: WH1CH 1 4M SORRY 4BOUT  
GC: BY TH3 W4Y  
TG: no its  
TG: its fine  
TG: like you obviously have this thing with vriska going on and far be it for me to get in the way of that  
TG: like  
TG: i wouldnt go stickin my nose in rose and kanayas business  
TG: doesnt mean were not friends just means im being a respectful guy yknow  
GC: OH  
GC: OH NO 1TS NOT  
GC: 1TS NOT L1K3 TH4T  
TG: its not  
TG: ok  
GC: 1 M34N  
GC: 1T 1S M4YB3 L1K3 TH4T  
GC: BUT NOT   
GC: 3NT1R3LY L1K3 TH4T  
TG: well uh  
TG: still dont wanna interfere  
TG: yknow  
TG: all sorts of uncomfy  
GC: TH4NK YOU  
TG: mmhmm sure  
TG: common courtesy man  
GC: 1 M34N 1T  
GC: D4V3 1 R34LLY 4M SORRY  
GC: 1 D1DNT M34N TO 1GNOR3 YOU  
TG: no its all cool  
TG: literally dont even bother  
TG: it is such a non issue it like  
TG: this situation right here shows up in the dictionary next to the word non issue  
TG: words  
TG: phrase  
TG: whatever  
GC: R34LLY  
TG: you dont even understand  
TG: i will literally pay you money to stop apologizing for this  
TG: and/or talking about this  
TG: please  
TG: humans have a quota of how many emotional conversations they can have in a day and mine is chock the fuck full  
GC: OH  
GC: 1F YOUR3 SUR3 TH3N  
TG: yes  
TG: yes absolutely please god stop talking about this  
GC: OK4Y  
GC: W3LL  
GC: T4LK TO YOU L4T3R TH3N D4V3  
TG: yeah uh  
TG: yeah talk to you later  
gallowsCalibrator [GC]  is an idle chum! 


	4. Rose

Rose, being neither as moon-eyed as Kanaya nor as deliberately obtuse as Dave, sees them for what they are immediately.

She pretends not to, of course, out of discretion. Had someone remarked on the close nature of her relationship with Kanaya prior to their official announcement of involvement, it would undoubtedly have thrown a wrench in the whole thing, and she likely would have resented them for as long as she was capable, which is a considerable length of time; desiring no resentment from either Vriska or Terezi, Rose keeps her mouth shut. This doesn’t stop her from being a little nosy. Nothing ever does.

The day before the meteor lands, she finds herself beside Vriska in the War Room. To be precise, it’s a laboratory that she and Vriska repurposed into a War Room by alchemizing a large table and a topographical map of the Incipisphere, with small models meant to represent each of the players. Paintings of featureless carapacians line the walls, as do thick velvet drapes, which Kanaya added for dramatic flair. Vriska sits in a high-backed golden chair that she built for herself, which bears uncanny resemblance to a throne, but as she was kind enough to alchemize a second for Rose, Rose doesn’t remark on its melodrama. Scribbled ink in purple and blue coats the table-map, notes written by both of them over plans and estimations, guesses about the future; Rose’s journal sits in its cradle in the corner, a complete record of everything that happened in their session and the trolls’, as well as a compendium of every prophecy and sign that she could wring from the misty, battle-worn future. The room’s size and density are a testament to their work. There is three years’ worth of history in this room. Neither of them can wait to be rid of it. 

Vriska picks up the piece that represents her. It’s a tiny wooden sun, modeled after the insignia on her tunic; she’s developed the habit of rubbing at it when she becomes anxious. The corners are weathered soft from rubbing. Rose’s own piece, a purple squiddle, sits on the model of the meteor, alongside those of the other meteor-bound children. They don’t say anything, which raises the question of why they’re there in the first place; Rose doesn’t pose it. Terezi’s and Kanaya’s pieces stare them down from the model meteor.

“I haven’t been sleeping.”

The sentence lurches from Vriska’s throat of its own accord. She swallows, tosses her piece up, and catches it in the air. “Got sick of Dream Bubbles, after a while.” 

Rose folds her hands in her lap. “Understandable.”

“Too many assholes. You know?” She rolls her shoulders and laughs shortly. “You get tired of hanging around with infinite versions of Eridan.” 

A smile crosses Rose’s lips, briefly. “That you do.”

Another silence falls, a short one, but a more companionable one. “I keep thinking,” Vriska starts, and then falls quiet. 

“One would hope,” Rose says wryly, attempting to clear the air. It doesn’t quite get there. The barb falls flat. Kanaya would’ve laughed, though. 

“I keep thinking about tomorrow,” Vriska clarifies, and Rose shrugs.

“To quote an Earth proverb: ‘Join the club.’” 

Vriska doesn’t say anything. She closes her hands around the token and holds it close to her chest, eyes skirting over the map with frenetic speed.

“Sorry,” Rose amends. “That was curter than necessary. I didn’t mean to discourage you. Please, continue.” 

“I just.” Vriska leans forward and sets her piece in the new session’s Incipisphere, a broad, dark portion of the map that even Rose’s clearest visions could never detail. “I keep thinking, y’know. If I die tomorrow. What it’ll be.” 

“Death entails a number of things, for a God Tier.” She’s careful, as her words usually are, around Vriska. As one’s words must usually be, around Vriska.

“Yeah. Like, Heroic Death, fine, whatever. TKO. That’s fine. I’m okay with that.” Vriska gesticulates, sweeping her hand grandly. “I’ve been okay with dying since — Jesus, I don’t know. The meteor.” 

Rose blinks. “‘Fine’ seems rather an inappropriate word.”

“Whatever, though, right? That’s what I am.” She shrugs. “Fine. I don’t care. You won’t believe it, but if I die, like. So? There’s the Dream Bubbles, right? And even if those go. I mean, I’ve died Heroic. I’ve done my thing. I’ve pulled it off.” 

“Pulled it off?”

“You know what I’m talking about. I don’t think you’ll admit it, but you know what I’m talking about.” Vriska’s eyes dart to her. A thin layer of blue grows from the pupil, a sign, according to Kanaya, of maturation. Not yet an adult, this troll, but getting there. “Dying. It’s easier than most people think. And you know that, don’t you? From one God Tier to another.” She swallows and looks away again. “It’s easier than people think.”

Rose pauses.

“Yes,” she says.

“Well, there you go. It’s easy because — I don’t know. It just _is._ I remember — I remember thinking I was going to die, when Terezi was — well.” And now they’re onto a subject that Vriska doesn’t want to talk about, so she skirts around the topic and retreats back into the comfortable realm of suicidal ideation. “Anyway, it doesn’t bother me. And the Just Death — well, that’d be fucking shitty, wouldn’t it, because I don’t think I deserve that, but hey, if that’s what the fucking ‘powers that be’ think I deserve, guess that’s the way things are. Wouldn’t be my first time hearing it, anyway.”

She tosses out stories of past abuse so casually that Rose almost misses them. It’s only by the white-knuckled grasp of her fingers on the armrest of her throne that her fury expresses itself. This blasé, repressed Vriska, prone to the idle macabre, is a new creature entirely from the girl that Rose has known; she is, in some ways, a far more terrifying beast.

“But,” Rose prompts.

“But. Maybe I don’t wanna die,” Vriska blurts, as if afraid that someone will punish her for saying so.

“Mm.”

“Maybe — maybe I wanna keep going. I don’t know. What’s in the new world, huh? I did my fucking work, didn’t I? I hauled ass to keep myself alive, these past few years. Keep everyone else alive. How do I know you shitheads won’t fuck up on the new planet? Gotta make sure all those little wigglers have someone to put shit in order so their society isn’t total fucking anarchy.” 

“I think,” Rose begins, “you might trust us to at least establish some kind of representative government. Or, if not us — the Mayor, certainly. He would be loath to let anarchy wrest civil liberties from the hands of our future subjects.” 

“That’s not the point. I’m just. I’m just saying. Couldn’t I do shit?” She shifts on the chair, crossing her legs.“Maybe not dying is an option. Tomorrow.” 

“Most people struggle to accept the possibility of their deaths on the eve of battle. Am I to understand that you’re doing the opposite?”

“Don’t tell me you’re not!” Her voice rises shrilly, and she stabs an accusing finger at Rose. “I know you’re — I’ve been in your head, asshole, I know what shitshows go on in there.” 

Rose flinches. “Uncalled for,” she says coldly.

Vriska cringes and retracts her finger. “Yeah,” she mutters. “Figured. Sorry.” 

“Apology accepted.” Rose reaches out and adjusts Terezi’s token. “I don’t mean to deflect your inquiry. I only think that this might be a conversation better had with your moirail. Or moirail-adjacent, as circumstances may be.” She lifts her eyes to Vriska’s, watching the play of emotions across the other girl’s face, lightning-quick and nigh-incomprehensible. “She who shares your specific kind of emotional baggage is infrequently the best candidate to resolve said baggage.” Rose plucks at an imaginary piece of lint on her sleeve in a probably ill-conceived attempt to seem nonchalant. “That is to say: I have no advice to give you, in this area, as you are correct in your assessment of our similarities.”

“Jesus Christ. Speak the Empress’ Alternian, would you?” Vriska springs out of her seat in agitation and paces to the other side of the room. “And anyway, I’m not looking for a feelings jam, or whatever. Also, fuck you for suggesting I’d cheat on my moirail.”

Rose sighs tightly. “That’s not nearly what I said, and anyway, I expect you’re seriously overexaggerating the gravity of pale infidelity, given that the very concept conflicts with that of _friendship,_ which your species obviously has —”

Vriska snorts in amusement. “Jesus, it’s like listening to Dave.”

“Repeat that in front of anyone else and I’ll tell Terezi about Nic Cage,” Rose says briskly, because what’s the use of being in someone’s head if you can’t scrape together some decent blackmail? 

“Fuck you. Fine.” Vriska stills in front of a portrait of a black carapacian royal, a gold crown rested jauntily on their head. Her token slips to and fro betwixt her bony fingers. “And I can’t talk to Terezi about shit like this. She probably knows anyway. She’s got her weird mind powers, knows everything about everyone.”

“I hardly think that’s within the grounds of her title,” Rose objects, but it’s like she’s speaking to a brick wall. Vriska spins on her heel with military precision and paces. 

“She’s just. I dunno. She’s so fucking pitiable, some days, but then, other days, I can’t fucking shut her up fast enough —” 

“Vriska,” Rose says, in mild alarm, “whoever gave you the idea that I have sufficient emotional intelligence to help you with questions of romance should be reminded that I did not, in fact, manage to _suggest_ a romantic relationship with Kanaya until after two years of flirting and an incredibly unhealthy amount of alcohol—”

“And I think she’s the only person who ever — fucking — not that you’re not great, or like. That I don’t like you. Or whatever. But you’ve got Kanaya, and Dave, and your other buddies on the big gold ship, and hell, even Karkat had at least three people willing to wipe his own asshole for him at the worst of times. But I — you get it. She doesn’t want me to fucking die, right? Like. That’s something she’s said. Out loud. And it’s weird.” Vriska rakes a hand through her hair. “It’s not that I wouldn’t care if you died, right? I’d be pretty fucking bummed. You’re a cool person, when you’re not being an asshole. Even when you are being an asshole. I don’t mind you. I’d like you not to die. But keeping you alive — it’s not _a priori,_ right? You get that? I’m not an asshole for thinking that way?” She rounds on Rose desperately. Her eyes are wild.

Rose, resigned to the fact that the conversation has grown far out of her hands, shrugs. “Perhaps it does. I feel the same, if it’s any consolation.”

“Good. Nice. No, that’s a good thing. You and I, we understand each other.” Vriska lessens her grasp on her hair, instead massaging the root of one horn. “But Terezi. She and I. She. She thinks about me dying like an — _a priori._ Apparently. So she says.” Her hand slides to rub the muscles in her neck. “But she does lie, sometimes. So.”

“Ah.” 

“So all of a sudden, I’ve gotta worry about not dying.” Vriska pinches the bridge of her nose. “And it’s. It’s complicated.”

“Because she doesn’t want you to?”

Vriska’s hands fly up in agitation. “I’m her moirail! It’s my job to make sure she’s not fucked up, emotionally speaking, and if me dying would fuck her up, emotionally, then I’m being a shitty moirail! Right? That’s the way those things work.”

“I’ve never had a moirail. I’m not sure if swearing off martyrdom is part of the package or not.” Rose lifts her eyebrows in the closest approximation she can manage of earnesty. “Which is why I’d suggest talking to your own moirail about this. Or, failing that, anybody who has experience in the pale quadrant. If I might introduce you to my girlfriend, Kanaya Maryam —” 

Vriska sits down heavily on the arm of her throne. A sigh rattles through her gritted teeth. “Kanaya broke up with me, in case you forgot, braniac.” 

“Believe it or not, the human emotion of friendship, of which I believe she has developed a severe infection, extends beyond the boundaries of romantic entanglement. Which is to say: if you asked her for advice, she is not the kind of woman to refuse you.” Rose contemplates, and then adds, “And I, at least, believe that she has recovered from her affection for you to the point where she could provide objective advice.”

Vriska’s eyes widen. “Affection?”

_Ah,_ Rose thinks. _That was a mistake._

“Pale,” she amends hastily. “Long since abandoned. What did you think I meant?” 

Vriska relaxes, marginally. “Dunno,” she mumbles. “Couldn’t ask Fuss— Kanaya. Couldn’t ask Kanaya for help, not with this. It’s a lot more. Complicated. I don’t think she’d understand, not really, she’s always been good at quadrants. Hell, everyone and their lusus wanted her ash, back in the heyday of — everyone existing. What I’m feeling, it isn’t totally . . . trollish.” 

Rose smirks. “Human?”

“Well, I wouldn’t know,” Vriska huffs. “I’ve never been one, or with one, but I guess if by _human_ you mean _ugly confused clusterfuck of emotion_ , then yeah, sure.” 

“That’s usually what it means,” Rose notes.

Vriska slumps into her seat. “I just wish she and I,” she begins, and halts. “Wish we’d,” she begins, and halts.

Rose rises from her chair. “I think,” she announces, “that I’m going to spend my scant hours left on this rock with my girlfriend. She, if nothing else, does not deserve to be left alone.” She reaches forward and touches the green neuron token, pushing it aside from the meteor group. She prays that the implication is clear.

“Right. Have fun.” Vriska flutters her fingers. “Catch you tomorrow.” 

Rose sighs, and presses the entry hatch on the door. It slides open, and she casts a last look behind her; sensing nothing, she leaves. 

She’s hardly turned the corner when she collides headfirst with Terezi. The troll’s horn ends up scraping a welt across her collarbone and one cane, hastily flung out in an inert attempt to avoid injury, socks her in the stomach.

“Fuck,” she announces, with feeling.

Terezi, who is clutching her left horn and grimacing dramatically, echoes the sentiment. “Jesus,” she complains. “Is something on fire?”

“No — and I wasn’t even moving all that quickly, so I don’t know where you get —”

“Have you seen Vriska?”

Rose blinks. “Why do you ask?”

Terezi shifts her weight from one foot to the other and pointedly does not look at Rose, which Rose knows is an effort to appear casual, because Terezi habitually faces people she’s talking to — a residual trait, Rose thinks, from when she was sighted, as well as a way to make herself better heard. “Haven’t been able to find her,” she says brusquely. “Wanted to talk strategy for tomorrow. You guys haven’t changed the plan, have you?”

“Without you? I didn’t think you took me for a fool, Terezi.”

A smile flits across Terezi’s lips. “Good.” 

Rose points to the War Room. “We were just enjoying a spot of antebellum conversation,” she says. “She’s still there.” 

“Cool. Dunno where Kanaya is, but she’s probably not as hard to find, so.” Terezi slaps Rose on the shoulder, which Rose believes to be some kind of emotionally repressed _thank you_ gesture. “See you.” She trots off toward the War Room without so much as a backward glance.

Rose pauses. Briefly contemplates doing the honorable thing and leaving them be.

Then she turns on her heel and follows Terezi.

Terezi opens the hatch to the War Room and steps through the door, but neglects to close it; it’s a simple thing for Rose to hover in the awning, watching from an angle. Neither seem to notice her presence, but granted, they’d probably miss a supernova if it happened to pass them by while they were staring at each other. They are spectacularly observant in all areas of life except each other.

“You,” Terezi declares, striding toward the war table, “are an asshole.”

“Revolutionary deduction,” Vriska drawls, tipping her head back. She’s got her legs draped over one armrest and waves a lazy hand at Terezi as she walks in. “Got any others?”

“Yes. You are also a coward.” 

Vriska grunts. “Really bringing the detailed analysis, tonight, Pyrope.” 

Terezi flicks Vriska’s left horn and shoves her legs off the armrest, perching herself on it instead. “Fuck you. I’m being serious.”

“And I’m not. Can we not be? I’m not really in the mood.”

“You’re being bitchy to try and piss me off so I won’t make you have a serious conversation. It won’t work. Ass.” She flicks the horn again, and Vriska swats her hand.

“No, I’m really just a bitchy person.”

“I mean, you are, but not to me. Usually. So we’re going to have a conversation.” Terezi settles her legs into Vriska’s lap, and Vriska’s hands settle naturally on her calves. “Why’d you hide?”

“What are you talking about? I’m bitchy to you all the time.” Vriska’s thumb strokes Terezi’s ankle. “And I wasn’t hiding. I was talking strategy with Rose.”

“Your lies stink. Try another tac.”

“Sorry, Counselor,” Vriska sneers. The venom is undercut by the gentle brush of her hand against Terezi’s knee. “I dunno. I wasn’t hiding. I just wasn’t with you. Doesn’t mean I’m _hiding.”_

“No. You’re right, there.” Terezi loops an arm over the back of the chair and rubs the back of her neck. They’re thoroughly wound each other, coiled up in such a practiced knot that it spells intimacy just to look at it; Rose feels embarrassed, almost, to watch them like this, so confident that they are unwatched.

“But,” Vriska says.

“But.” 

“Hey, so. Uh.” She twists her head away from Terezi. “About tomorrow, though.”

“Oh. Actually, in retrospect. The ‘serious conversation’ thing? Overrated. Maybe let’s not,” Terezi says hastily. 

“No, like. I’ve got something to say and I don’t know if I’ll say it tomorrow. So. I’m gonna say it now.” Vriska sets her jaw and makes herself look at Terezi. Terezi tenses, eyes wide.

“Yeah?”

They hold that position for a moment.

“I, uh,” Vriska says. “Uh. I’ll try not to die.”

It feels anticlimactic, after the tension of the moment preceding it. Quiet and unimportant, on face, and nothing unusual. But Terezi’s face lights up with a brilliance to shame the Green Sun, and she lurches forward to tip her head onto Vriska’s shoulder, her arms winding around the other girl’s neck.

She mumbles something into Vriska’s ear that Rose cannot hear, and dark blue swells at the top of Vriska’s cheeks.

“Yeah,” Vriska says, sounding congested. “You too.”

Then someone’s face turns _just_ so, and Terezi slips from the seat into Vriska’s lap entirely, canes clattering to the floor, and someone murmurs something unintelligible, and then Vriska leans forward and kisses Terezi, gently, hardly more than a brush of lips. It’s Terezi who chases her mouth, hands sliding up to cradle Vriska’s head where it swells from the neck, and rising up to get better leverage; Vriska’s hands stall, awkwardly, in midair, before coming to rest delicately at the small of Terezi’s back. She touches Terezi like she’s afraid of her own two hands; Terezi touches Vriska like she’s attempting to wring passion from stone. 

“C’mon,” Terezi breathes, loud, “c’mon, c’mon,” and Rose, feeling warmth rise to her face, slips from the doorway as quietly as possible.

She doesn’t stay to listen, already feeling that she has trespassed the bounds of dignity. She instead tiptoes for the next two consecutive hallways, half anxious that Terezi will catch her footstep long after she’s exited human earshot, and then runs the rest of the way to Kanaya’s room; she arrives with a face warm from _exertion_ , she tells herself, and nothing more.


	5. (Vriska)

John doesn’t quite pick up the hang things for another day or so in the Dream Bubbles, by which point Vriska is just about ready to leave him there to fend for himself.

It’s not that she’s not _sympathetic_. Or — well. It’s not that she doesn’t _understand._ Gotta be rough, reevaluating your entire idea of the afterlife, trying to recall memories that, from your perspective, haven’t even happened yet. She gets it.

But she can’t help thinking that even for humans, he’s being deliberately slow on the uptake. How long does it take to wrap your head around the concept of being dead? She’s done it twice.

They’re walking through a field of Alternian grasses, her planet distinguishable by the twin moons peeping over the horizon. It’s daytime, which perturbs her; she keeps expecting her skin to erupt in fire, or feel searing pain on the back of her neck. Now and again she has to remember that she’s a ghost. 

Groups of the undead amble about, uninterested in either she or John. Their flesh sags from rotting skeletons, jagged teeth jutting from their peeling lips, and Vriska finds herself avoiding their eyes. It’s not hard. Some of them don’t even have eyes. She’d always known, on a theoretical level, that the undead existed — Kanaya had told her about hunting them, once or twice — but that was different from seeing them, having to brush past them on her way across the field. She makes a point of staying out of her way. Even years after its death, her planet still managed to skeeve her out.

“So,” John says. “That’s pretty gross.”

“Ditto. Where’s a rainbow drinker with a chainsaw when you need one around here?” She makes a stab at humor; he blinks, uncomprehending, and she sighs. 

“It’s a joke. About my friend. Kanaya. Who is — never mind.” She elbows one of the decomposing beasts out of her way and it collapses in a pile of bones and scraps of clothing. “Wonder whose memory this is. _I_ never went out during the daytime.”

“Really? Why not?” John’s curiosity is, as ever, endearing and a pinch irritating. “Is your species nocturnal or something?”

“Yeah. Don’t go out during the day, usually, unless you’re a rainbow drinker. And they’re pretty rare.” She scratches her neck. “It’s, uh. The sun’s pretty harmful to us, normally.”

“What’s it do?”

“Burns, serious ones. Uh. Blindness, if you look at it too long.” Vriska casts a glance instinctively at the bright yellow star, wincing at the vibrancy of its light. She imagines staring at it for hours and hours, powerless to look away, as her vision gradually grows dim —

“That’s weird. I can look at it just fine.” John holds his hand over his eyes and squints. “I mean, you’re not supposed to look at the earth’s sun, either, and it gives you burns, too. Maybe your skin is just more sensitive than mine?”

Vriska scoffs. “As if. You’ve got skin like a wriggler. I could break it with my pinky fingernail.” 

John gives her an odd look. “Uh. Okay, then.” 

She scuffs at a rock with the toe of her boot. This doesn’t happen infrequently — she’ll say something that’s not normal, per se, but doesn’t strike her as weird until after she says it — and he’ll look at her, just a little too long for her to believe he’s not disturbed by it, but he won’t say anything, he’ll just look. She’s used to the look; she’s not used to it from John. 

“I think,” she begins. Stops. “I believe,” she restarts, measuring her words carefully — she’s doing that more often, nowadays, and on a cognitive level she knows it’s probably a good idea, but it’s also a pain in the ass — “there’s probably a friend of mine somewhere around here. She’s the only one who’d remember Alternia like this.” She waves her hand broadly at the sky. “Sunny. And shit.” 

“Who’s your friend?”

“Kanaya?” Vriska’s lips curve. “She’s pretty badass. Kind of a fussyfangs, sometimes, but if you look past that, she can be pretty cool. She also once chainsawed a guy in half, I mean, _in fucking half,_ which, like, _swoon_ , right? Anyway, she could go out in the daytime.” Her jaw clamps shut, suddenly. “Or. Uh. I guess there’s another person it could be.”

“Another friend?” She starts walking quickly. She grabs his arm and hauls him toward the edge of the clearing, away from a cluster of purple trees.

“Yes. No. Someone who used to be.” Her heart starts playing percussion-slate on her ribcage. “She knew what Alternia looked like, in the daytime.” 

“Was she a rainbow drinker, too?” John’s curiosity is genuine, and he has honest, real, innocent motives for asking, Vriska knows. It doesn’t make his probing any less abrasive, any less familiar, which is why when she answers, the words come out sharp, instinctively defensive.

“No. She went blind, actually.” She puts the purple trees behind them and kicks over one of the undead. The smell of the ocean wafts in from the east; she pursues it. Even Gamzee’s memories are better than this. 

“Oh. I’m sorry.” John stumbles over the words as if he’s not used to having to say them, in this context. Vriska envies him the novelty of offering sympathies for another’s loss.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds. She liked it. Turned out all right, anyway.” She banks left and starts climbing. The ground beneath her boots turns to stone, pressing through her thin soles; she considers flying, but remembers John can’t, and it would be a bigger pain to carry him.

“Are you sure?”

She looks at him sharply. “What? Of course I’m sure. Did she tell you otherwise?”

“You’re talking about Terezi, right?” 

Vriska wrenches on his arm with unnecessary force to pull him around a clump of hoofbeast dung. “Yeah,” she says curtly. “I’m talking about Terezi.” 

“Yeah. I met her, you know? She kind of bullied me for a while? Or trolled. I don’t think it was really bullying. She was mean, but she wasn’t . . . malicious.” 

“She’d be offended to hear you say that,” Vriska mutters. 

He tilts his head in contemplation. “I dunno. She was always pretty chill about it — being blind, I mean — so I never wondered how she got that way! Like, people are born blind, right? I’d just figured it was normal.” 

“It _is_ normal. It’s not even that big of a deal, oh my God.” She claws a patch of hair out of her face. The sea breeze whips it up and tangles it around her neck, and she grits her teeth, tries to keep her hands away from it. When she was younger, she had the habit of tearing it out when it annoyed her. She dropped the habit around the same time she started playing FLARP. She’s picked it up again, lately, though. Can’t figure why. 

“I dunno. Seems like it’d be a big deal.” 

“What do _you_ know about it? For all you know, there are a bunch of blind people on Alternia. Like having detached earlobes, or some shit.” 

“Earlobes?” He sounds amused.

“Shut up.” She crests over the rocky outcropping, and they can see the ocean, sprawling out against the coast and lashing discontentedly at the horizon, miles away. A handful of ships parade to and fro over the skyline. Their sails lash in the breeze, fluttering black parachutes that snap and whip with the force of an enraged cholerbear; Vriska can almost hear the crackle of fabric snapping taut before a gust of wind. Her fingers itch for the brush of a sanded, polished wheel, for a twined length of rope. Or a sword.

To the west, a castle sprouts from an outcropping over the ocean, neighbored by a few similarly grandiose estates. The thing was clearly built clumsily, towers piled upon rooms piled upon useless walls, like a child’s approximation of what a castle should look like. It’s got none of the grace or architectural integrity of a real house, or a ship. Reminds Vriska of a house of cards. 

“That’s home,” she says, pointing at it. 

John turns and squints. “It’s kind of ugly,” he says, matter-of-factly.

“Fuck you. That’s Grade-A architecture.” 

“It looks like someone built a house out of grey Legos.”

“Is ‘Legos’ the human word for ‘classy material’?”

“No, it’s the human word for ‘shitty design.’” 

“ _Fuck_ you,” Vriska says lightly, and turns away from the house. “C’mon. Port’s this way.” 

“What, you’re not gonna show me your house?” John resists her, tugs toward her house instead. “Let’s go see what the inside of that atrocity looks like.”

“In your dreams. Buy a girl dinner first.” 

“All right. All right.” He puts up his hands. “All I’m saying is, if you’re that proud of the architecture —”

“It’s got a draft like hell and half of the windows are in compromising spots. You don’t wanna go in there.” She kicks a stone and it goes rocketing off the outcropping, plunging into the sea. “The landlady’s a bitch, too.”

She knows it’s a mistake the moment John opens his mouth, curiosity apparent in way he tries not to appear curious. “Landlady?”

“Lusus. Giant-ass spider. Port’s _this_ way, John Human, let’s go.” He lets himself be maneuvered away from the castle, albeit with some resistance.

“So,” he says, which Vriska finds one of the most terrifying syllables in this or any other language.

“So? So what?”

“You were raised by a giant spider?”

“Yeah, what’s so weird about that?”

“I don’t know. Really, it’s probably not the weirdest thing about this situation. I don’t know why it’s taking me by surprise.” He hesitates. “I guess you kinda remind me of a friend of mine, actually.”

“Why? Who?”

“In that — you don’t talk about her, I guess. Your mom. All my other friends talk about their parents. Sometimes they aren’t friendly when they talk about them, and sometimes they’re even angry, but they all mention them sometimes. You don’t. You just — you don’t _ever_ talk about her. At all.” He cocks his head. “And, uh. Dave did that. When he wasn’t praising his Bro, he just kind of. Dodged questions about him.” 

“Dave’s a dumbass. I don’t dodge questions about my lusus. What do you want to know?”

“Nothing. I don’t — well, uh, kind of want to know _some_ things — that’s not the point! I want to know why you don’t like talking about her.” 

The castle fades from view. As they grow closer and closer to the port, the fabric of the dream bubble shimmers, sways, and rows of strange ribbed trees sprout from the beaches around them. The color of the sea shifts to a brighter, sunnier blue, and clouds fade from the sky. The land around them shrinks and curves, and an island frog statue sprouts from the arms of a narrow inlet.

“Guess we’ll never get to see that port,” Vriska says glumly, and resigns herself to the fact that she’ll have sand in her boots for the rest of eternity. Nice. 

John’s eyes widen and he beams. “I think this is Jade’s island,” he says, and breaks into a sprint. “Maybe she’s around here somewhere!”

“You realize she’s not — John — you realize —” He forgets that Vriska’s got him by the arm, so she floats off her feet and lets him tow her along. He careens along the beach and takes a sharp turn into the hills, climbing at a pace that belies the girl he’s dragging along behind him.

“You realize,” she insists, aware that he’s probably not paying attention, “that it’s not actually Jade — or, rather, _your_ Jade, right? The chances are astronomical —”

Irritation flickers across his face. “But it’s my sister, right? Any version of her.”

“Sure, sure, whatever, I’m just _saying._ It’s not _your_ Jade,” Vriska insists, trying to make him understand. “I don’t want you to get your hope up for. Nothing. Or whatever.”

His smile fades. “I haven’t seen Jade in months,” he points out, sounding inordinately wounded.

“Yeah, which, like. I’m not saying you can’t be happy! I just don’t want you to be disappointed when she doesn’t — I dunno, doesn’t act like your sister! They’re different timelines.” She lets go of his arm and floats down to the ground. “They’re not the same people.” 

He sets his mouth in a stubborn line. “I’m gonna go see her anyway,” he says, and keeps walking.

“Of course! If that’s what you want to do! I’m not saying you _shouldn’t!_ Jesus.” She sticks her hands in her pockets. “I’m just _saying.”_

He gives her a flat look. Pauses. Nibbles on his lip, consternation knitting his brows.

“I think we should talk,” he says, finally.

* * *

Vriska is alone for a while, after that.

She says it’s by choice, to any inanimate object that looks to be turning a judgmental ear her way. It isn’t, really, but she says so, and saying so makes her feel a modicum better about being alone, so she says it. The art of self-deception requires sophistication and talent.

Aimless wandering has lead her into a monochromatic world of sharp, angular spires, church steeples, and black, bottomless crevasses between buildings. Half the time there’s no clear path forward, so to advance at all requires advanced maneuvering and the occasional scaling of a building. Vriska skips the hassle and just flies. She presumes that whoever had this land must’ve been itching to leave it; after a while, the color scheme starts to hurt her eyes. Strange, glowing creatures circle the skies overhead, but never dip below the atmosphere, so she doesn’t bother herself about them.

She presumes the bubble is empty, and from that derives a little bit of comfort, until she hears someone’s laughter ricocheting off one of the walls. She’s running before she realizes it. The sound of a troll’s laughter — scratchy, hoarse, but honest-to-God _trollish —_ is foreign, but welcome. Euphonic. 

She rounds a corner on the balustrade and almost trips over the edge, a dizzying swoop of terror clenching her stomach before she remembers she can fly. Then she hears, distorted by the echoes of the quiet, discordant land: “Can’t you fly?”

Vriska’s bloodpusher fails her in the next moments, thinking that the person is talking to _her,_ until someone else’s voice — but it’s not someone else’s voice, not really, it’s just not _hers_ — “Can’t you? Dumbass.”

Terezi and Vriska round the corner, making quick work of the uneven ledge they tread. The other Vriska’s clothes are familiar, but Terezi’s aren’t; she wears a green tunic with berry pink slippers and a thick olive hood, which she’s pushed back. Both their eyes are glazed white.

“My body is a temple. I’m keeping it in order.”

“Like hell your body’s a temple! I’ve seen you eat five whole grubloaves in one sitting.”

“Sometimes a temple necessitates gluttonous sacrifice,” Terezi says, with a dignity that nobody but her could muster for the words coming out of her mouth. “I still defend my thesis.” 

The not-Vriska rolls her eyes and hip-checks Terezi. “Mm-hmm.” 

Terezi’s smile comes too easily for her face. The uncanniness of her glee is the first thing to tip off Vriska that something’s not all right with the picture, besides the bizarre dissociation of seeing herself in the third person. Terezi doesn’t smile easy. _Her_ Terezi, rather, never smiled easily. This imposter, Vriska doesn’t know her.

But the not-Vriska does. She smiles back, easy as pie, and that actively sickens Vriska, because it’s so unnatural. Vriska’s face fits ill around a comfortable, open expression, especially this other-her, with a touch more flesh on her bones, a touch more meat to her ribs. A touch quicker to laugh, a touch more lenient with her longing glances, a touch more obvious with her affection. It’s _sickening_.

She has half a mind to swoop down and greet them, but then Terezi does something _awful:_ she reaches up and adjusts her glasses, just an absentminded little nudge up her nose, and Vriska’s reminded of her own Terezi like a hoofbeast being reminded of its own mortality in the blaze of oncoming headlights. 

She presses a hand to her abdomen, absently. There’s a sickly little ache nesting there.

“I’ve had more than enough of angels,” Terezi announces, squinting at the sky. “They’re assholes. I don’t like them.”

“Eridan tried to kill them. Can you believe that? Dipshit.” 

“Cheers,” Terezi agrees idly. “But the point remains. Even the blind get tired of black and white.”

“Typically, the blind can’t perceive color, but whatever.”

“You blind? You ever been blind? You know any other blind people? Shut the fuck up.” 

“I know enough about being blind to know that you usually can’t fucking _see.”_

“You invalidate me,” Terezi sniffs, and the other Vriska rolls her eyes, reaches over and — reaches over and fucking tousles Terezi’s hair, rough and easy. 

“Drama queen.”

“I am not! I am a most reasonable person, if I do say so —”

“And you _do_ say so, which most reasonable people don’t need to do.” The other Vriska’s smirk broadens. 

“When did you get all wise?”

“I dunno. Hung out with a Mind player, like, a fuckton, might’ve helped.” 

Terezi refuses to let herself be flattered. “Kissing my ass gets you points with nobody but me,” she warns, waggling a reprimanding finger. “Although don’t let that discourage you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” 

Vriska backs away from the ledge, losing sight of them; after a moment, they drift out of earshot, too, and the world is silent again. 

She wonders if this is what it felt like when John wanted to see Jade. Not his Jade, necessarily, or even a version of Jade that he’d recognize. But maybe a Jade that was even a fraction, a tenth, the tiniest possible percentage like the Jade that he’d known before — a shade of his sister — that would be enough. Vriska could’ve lived a long, happy life without knowing that feeling. Of course, she hasn’t lived a long or happy life. But theoretically, there’s a version of her that has. Maybe that version of her is walking away on a monochrome church balustrade with a dead Terezi at her side.

She leaves the church-world by flying, not foot, because it’s faster.

* * *

 

It’s a little bit funny, meeting a version of herself that hasn’t lost Terezi.

(Vriska) wonders what that must be like. If it feels nice. If Vriska even realizes what a privilege it is — and she must, right? How she could look at (Vriska) and think anything but _oh thank God,_ really? But she doesn’t seem particularly grateful. She just seems angry.

(Vriska) wants to cuss her out to high hell for not dropping to her goddamn knees and thanking every listening god that she had the sheer fucking _luck_ not to turn out like (Vriska), but (Vriska) can’t wrap her head around the fact that she used to be quite so passionate about anything. Dying makes everyone care just a little bit . . . less, about everything; (Vriska) theorizes that it’s why the Dancestors never cared about saving the universe, and why Meenah, of all of them, had the most fervor for being relevant. 

“There it is again, making it all about you,” Vriska says, “even when trying to be heroic. You let that need blind you and you did something really stupid, basically leaving _no other option_ but for you to get killed.” Her laugh is high, cruel, jittering. “So since you started your journey as a ghost with that little feat of self-absorption, is it any surprise that after however many pseudo-sweeps floundering around as a lost soul, _this_ is where you end up? A shamelessly self-indulgent, punk-ass nobody?”

(Vriska) flinches and objects, and she tries to argue, but she’d never been good at arguing with herself. And anyway, the other version of her is in no mood to listen. She yells and fumes and spits and just on the whole acts terribly like a living person. Ingrate.

(Vriska) is tempted to ask about Terezi. But she has the feeling it’d just make her angrier.

Meenah breaks up with her as kindly as she knows how, which is to say, not kindly at all, but at least attempting to demonstrate that she feels bad about it, which is something, at least. Doesn’t sting any less. But that’s just it: it stings. It doesn’t rip at her, doesn’t feel like she’s losing anything; it’s like looking down and realizing she’s got a bloody scrape on her knee. Distant, irritated pain, the impulse to press on it and evaluate the degree of pain. Vriska is happy to press on the scrape for (Vriska), but the results are disappointing, if nothing else. There’s fear, of course. Fear of being alone out here. It’s scary as shit in the dream bubbles. But (Vriska) has the feeling that she’d be reacting the same way for anybody. 

“You’ve made the right choice, Peixes,” Vriska gloats. Awful, her, really. (Vriska) wonders how Terezi can stand it.

After leave, things are quiet. And lonely. And lonelier, still, when the world itself starts to chip away. 


	6. Finale

The black hole gleams around the edges like the sun during an eclipse. The light that it emanates, in fact, is brighter than any sun that Vriska’s ever seen, and she considers alchemizing herself a set of sunglasses if she didn’t think it would make her look like such an insufferable douche. Ghosts flit back and forth before it like pieces of flypaper in the arms of a hurricane, ephemeral and dying. Their screams become part of the ambience, after a while. It surprises Vriska that it’s taken this long for the bubbles to go; she’d assumed that the session would all go at once, incinerated in the weapon’s wake. Instead, it trickles into oblivion with the efficiency of molasses through a sieve. She watches it go in lieu of anything better to do.

From time to time, a ghost will approach her, either to strike up conversation or rail at her for the offenses that their own Vriska committed, and she takes it as best as she can. This is to say that she doesn’t take it at all. After she’s yelled at a few of them, they start leaving her well enough alone. She’s not sure if it’s better or worse. Waiting to die on the vestiges of a universe isn’t really a situation that’s improved by company.

Terezi comes to mind, on occasion. She avoids thinking about her. Reminders of broken promises are — unsavory — to say the least — and she’s got so many, left over from a session she thought she’d survive, that it’s a slippery slope from thinking about Terezi to thinking about broken promises to thinking about the promise she made to return, which — doesn’t look realistic, at this point, strictly speaking. 

Still, sometimes it can’t be helped. She entertains herself by thinking about what they’re doing out there in the new world. Sometimes, if she’s feeling really masochistic, she’ll imagine that Terezi didn’t survive the final battle. Sometimes, if she’s feeling _really_ masochistic, she’ll imagine that nobody did.

But that’s a very short train of thought, so she entertains more complex delusions in the form of what she thinks they’re all doing. Maybe Dave sorted shit out with his lusus-dancestor, settled down and wrote some truly awful rap music. Maybe Rose and Kanaya sorted shit out with the repopulation crisis and had about two billion little pretentious babies. Wherever Karkat is, he’s yelling at people. Probably pissing scores of people off. Somehow nobody ever gets _really_ pissed at him, though, so he’s probably sitting pretty on his throne as god-king of the new world.

Joke — _Jake_ — is hopefully fucking off somewhere and having a grand old time, useless as he is. Maybe he managed to squeeze through the final battle in one piece, all limbs intact, and he gets to live out the rest of his life in a field somewhere. The rest of his infinite life. 

Whether they’re all immortal is an interesting question. Not a question for Vriska, really. Immortality doesn’t generally do shit when you’re face to face with a black hole, and even if it did, she wouldn’t want to live out the rest of forever in one. 

A scene from the meteor elbows itself to the forefront of her mind, without permission and certainly without welcome.

* * *

“I don’t like my dancestor,” Terezi announces.

“Yeah, me neither.” Vriska flips back on the human sleeping platform and holds her pocket husktop over her head, squinting at the lines of text. It’s fucking hard to see without her glasses, but Terezi’s holding them hostage in exchange for her cane, which Vriska’s sitting on. “I mean, I don’t like mine. Don’t really care about yours, one way or another. Unless it’s a thing.”

“I don’t think it’s a thing. It’s just something that I realized. I don’t like her.” Terezi hesitates. “I don’t like any of them.”

“Fair. They’re all pretty awful people.” Vriska drops her pocket husktop on her face and yelps. “Fuck.”

Terezi snickers and straddles her chair backwards, resting her chin on her folded arms. “I don’t care that they’re awful people, though. I like loads of awful people! For example,” she says, pointing an impotent finger. “You.” 

“I’m an excellent person. Fuck you.”

“You’re my moirail and I love you, but that’s a lie if I ever smelled one.” Vriska’s bloodpusher skitters over the next few beats, and she picks up her husktop to busy her eyes. “Anyway.”

“Yeah? So what’s your shit with your dancestor, then?”

“She’s just —” Terezi flails her hands. “She doesn’t care about anything. She _seems_ like a cool person, right, but she doesn’t actually. Do shit. How she talks, the little mannerisms. That’s _all_ there is to her. If you had to describe her, right, what would you say?”

“I —” Vriska pauses and chews her lip. “I dunno. Skater chick.”

“That’s an aesthetic! That’s not a personality!” Terezi leaps from her chair and vaults onto the bed, eliciting a grunt from Vriska. “Am I crazy? I’d always figured my ancestor would be this badass legislacerator. And instead she’s just — cool.”

Vriska shrugs. “At least yours isn’t a pompous windbag.”

“Oh, don’t you even _dare_ complain about Aranea. At least she has substance!”

“Substance, yeah. Too fuckin’ much of it. Only interesting thing she ever said was about her own ancestor, and even then, she made _pirates_ sound _boring._ ”

“A rare talent.”

“A shitty talent. I’d trade for Latula any day of the week.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Terezi snorts, and paws at Vriska’s shoulder. “Not if you had to talk to her. Move over, I wanna lie down.”

“I love talking to your dancestor, she’s fun as shit. And get your own human sleeping platform.”

“How can you think — I _did_ get one. You’re _sitting_ on it, ass.” 

Vriska frowns at it. “I distinctly remember making this one myself.”

“You never made one! You said, and I quote, ‘That’s lame wriggler shit,’ and that you’d ‘sleep in a recuperacoon like a grown-ass troll,’ and then proceeded to steal _my_ human sleeping platform at every opportunity!”

“Hmm.” Vriska contemplates that for a moment, then shrugs. “Oh, well.” She snuggles into the mattress comfortably, sprawling out as broadly as she can.

“You’re such a fucking asshole,” Terezi says fondly, and then flops over on top of her. Her elbow drives into Vriska’s stomach and beats the breath from Vriska’s air sacs.

Her head nestles into the crook of Vriska’s neck, and she wriggles around until Vriska’s arm is draped more or less around her shoulders. Terezi’s body runs warmer than Vriska’s; it feels like being swaddled by heated sopor. Her hair fans out over Vriska’s face, and Vriska sneezes.

“That’s disgusting. I don’t want your snot in my hair.”

“Don’t put your hair in my fucking nose, then, genius.”

“I will _lick_ you, so help me God.”

“Oh, _no!_ What if I get _cooties?”_

Terezi huffed, her breath hot. “Fine. You asked for it.” Before Vriska has time to react, she’s stuck out her tongue and taken a long swipe of Vriska’s carotid, leaving a saliva trail in her wake. Vriska yelps and shoves her off the bed, flinching.

“Gross!”

“You sneezed on me!”

“You _licked_ me!”

“No shit,” Terezi says, grinning. “Really?”

Vriska glares, and then tackles her.

They scuffle on the floor for a few moments. Vriska, being taller, grabs the upper hand quickly, and manages to wrest Terezi underneath her, holding her forearm across Terezi’s throat in a gesture that would’ve been threatening in any other situation.

“I’ll lick you again,” Terezi warns her.

“Try it.” 

Her mouth twists in a way that does funny things to Vriska’s cardiovascular matrix and furrows her eyebrows, as if she’s examining a particularly tough legal puzzle. 

“Okay,” she says simply, and leans forward and kisses Vriska on the mouth.

It’s not even a steamy kiss; it lasts for no more than two seconds, no tongue, nothing intimate. It could be misread for pale. That doesn’t stop Vriska from freezing up like a wriggler seeing their first Imperial Drone. 

Terezi takes advantage of the moment to toss Vriska off of her and spring to her feet, grinning ecstatically. “Rube,” she gloats, and then, snatching up her cane from the human sleeping platform, scampers out of the room.

* * *

The memory induces a weird feeling, settled somewhere in the back of Vriska’s throat. It hurts, but enjoyably. She can’t remember what happened after that; she did nothing more than sit around thinking about it, probably. Useless.

A dot moves across the corner of her vision. Vriska turns, frowns. The dot sharpens, its features becoming clearer, the colors growing into full vibrancy. A pair of wings, bright red, sprout from it.

Terezi careens out of the sky, a trail of smoke issuing from her jetpack.

“Oh,” Vriska says, faintly, and, as Terezi fails to decrease her velocity, “Fuck,” and then Terezi collides with her. 

* * *

Vriska doesn’t look a day older than she did that last hour on the meteor.

Terezi is painfully conscious of the wrinkles folded into her own face, the tint to her skin from spending sweeps under a foreign sun, the narrow ring of teal surrounding her pupils. She looks at least a sweep older than Vriska, and much further into her adult molt, but she can hardly think about it clearly when she can _see_ Vriska, right in front of her, with clear, distinct pupils, and yellow eyes, standing on a broken hunk of rock in the middle of space and so incredibly alive.

Terezi tackles her to the ground.

“Fuck,” Vriska says. “Jesus. You’re _big_ now.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Terezi says, ignoring the catch in her throat. “I’m big enough to kick your ass.”

“Shitass jetpack still working,” Vriska remarks, sounding dazed. “Pretty good.”

“Yeah.”

“You good?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Yeah,” Vriska says, blinking, and then kisses her.

It’s red as fuck, maybe a little black, but Terezi’s gone too long without seeing her to mind much. Vriska’s lips slant against Terezi’s pulse point, and Terezi makes a noise that sure as hell isn’t dignified, cradling the back of Vriska’s head in her hand.

“Let’s run away,” Vriska says.

It’s like being shoved headfirst out of a recuperacoon.

“What,” Terezi says. 

Vriska doesn’t seem aware of Terezi’s reaction, at first. “C’mon,” she pants, her hands tugging at the collar of Terezi’s jacket. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon — there’s an entire _world_ out there, Pyrope, all open and empty — there’d be nobody but you and me, you and me, like we said it’d be, when we were kids —”

“What?” Terezi stares, staring at the top of her head, while Vriska struggles with the buttons on her pants. “What do you mean — when we were kids, we —”

“There’s a whole world of dream bubbles leftover,” Vriska breathes, “and you’re here, and I’m here. And Mom isn’t. And — we don’t need to kill anybody, anymore. So.”

“We don’t need to kill anybody.” Terezi repeats it slowly.

“Yeah, yeah — like you wanted. You wanted it this way, right? Good pirates. Nobody has to die, nobody has to suffer at all. Let’s go away.” Vriska’s breath fans out, hot, over the newly bare stretch of Terezi’s throat. Her teeth hover close to the carotid. “Leave all those assholes behind. There’s a hundred just like them in the Dream Bubbles.”

“Which are collapsing. As we speak.”

“Yes, exactly, so we’d better get going on exploring — don’t you want to see what Beforus is like? It’s all here. And so is Earth. So is _Alternia._ And the rest of the galaxy, because there’s about a billion of us in here and everyone remembers a piece of it.” Vriska lifts her head. Her eyes are wet but her smile’s still there, a little bit less enthusiastic. Terezi wonders, in distant shock, whether she’d figured that Terezi would waltz in and agree to run away, like the protagonist in one of Karkat’s shitty movies, like anybody else would — love of your life, asking you to run away forever, Jesus Christ — like she isn’t Terezi Pyrope, and the love of her life isn’t Vriska Serket.

“No,” Terezi says.

“What?”

Vriska’s hands fall from Terezi’s shirt, and she takes a step back. Terezi’s body is very cold, out here in outer space, without the other girl against her, but she lifts her chin anyways and repeats herself.

“Why not?” She’d forgotten how ugly Vriska looks when she’s angry. Face scrunched up in a snarl. She looks stupid and nasty and cruel and young and Terezi’s dizzied with affection just _looking_ at her, so much that she’s half compelled to take it all back and agree to run away. But she’s nothing if not an impartial judge at the best of times, so she explains. She thinks, after all of this, that Vriska is at least entitled to that much. 

“I’m going back to my friends,” she explains. “I didn’t come all this way just to fuck around in the Dream Bubbles for the rest of my life. Dumbass.” 

“ _What_ friends?” Her lip curls.

“I’m going to pretend that didn’t sound as shitty as it did.” 

“No — not — not like —” Vriska’s flings up her hands. They tremble around her temples as she tries not to gesticulate with barely repressed anger. “You _know_ I don’t mean. I’m not good at saying shit. You know that’s not what I meant. I meant who, who on Earth —” She stops, swallows, balls her fists at her hips. “Is it Dave?”

“Is — who?” The name takes her so much by surprise that it takes her a moment to remember who he is in context of the conversation, and even then, she can’t wrap her head around what Vriska means.

“Is it him? Did he get over Karkat? Or is it Karkat? He always liked you. Had a flushcrush a mile wide, that long-term shit doesn’t just go away when a blonde piece of ass stumbles into your lap. Did you wait a while for me, or did you jump ship the minute I was through the window?” 

Her vicious rage renders Terezi breathless. This is the symptom of distance: she’d forgotten why she and Vriska split up, before, and why they’d never been together properly in the first place. Vriska asks for too much, and Terezi says no, and Vriska gets hurt, and she shouts, and she cries, and she’s cruel, and Terezi —

Terezi crooks her arm and punches Vriska in the mouth.

She crumples and slides to the edge of the platform, pushing herself back up and spitting a viscous glob of cerulean onto the ground. There might be a tooth in there. Terezi isn’t sure. The left side of her jaw is already swelling, a cut across the lip splitting grey skin. 

“Ah,” Vriska says, touching it, and a faint smile reveals bloodstained teeth. “I remember that.” 

“You’re a piece of shit.” Terezi strides forward to stand in front of her, folds her arms, fumes. “You’re a piece of shit and I didn’t cheat on you once, not in any quadrant, not even when I thought you were dead and had every right to. You’re the only person I’ve ever had anything with, you _fucking_ _asshole_.” 

“Never?” She looks far too happy for someone whose mouth has recently been judiciously fucked up. Terezi lands a kick on her shin for good measure. 

“No. Not even ash, which we _weren’t,_ by the way. Ever.” 

“Arguably,” Vriska says, with liberal employment of the _‘well, actually’_ lilt, “arguably, there was a point in there, with regards to Gamzee —”

“I swear to God.” 

“— but it’s not important! Not important.” Vriska raises her hands in surrender, which is a healthy choice, given that Terezi had rounded on her and was prepared to employ brute force to make her point clear. “I mean. Thanks.”

Terezi snorts and stuffs her hands in her pockets. She backs away. She’s always found that during their fights, it’s best to put as much distance between them as possible. “Not cheating on you isn’t doing you a favor, but whatever. You’re welcome, I guess.”

“Kind of is. If you thought I was dead.” Vriska wipes a matted lock of hair from her eyes and adds, “Not even pale?”

Terezi spreads her hands, somewhat helplessly. “Who would I do it with? Even if I wanted to. Dave and Karkat still have their trans-quadrant clusterfuck, and Rose and Kanaya’ve got a monogamous schmaltzy human romance — they’re human married, by the way, apparently that’s a thing that couples do — and everyone else I either didn’t know or didn’t like, and hey, did you know that you kind of ruined me for everyone else anyway?” She spins and lands a square kick in the dirt. Her toe throbs and it distracts her from the conversation, which more than makes up for the pain. “So thanks for that. Shitstain.” 

“Right,” Vriska says. “Uh. Sorry, I guess.”

“Not important.” Terezi rolls her shoulders and imagines the problems being sloughed off into the sea. “I’m not running away from them, regardless.”

Vriska is quiet for a full thirty seconds. It’s a refreshing choice. An unusual one. 

“They wouldn’t miss you.” 

“Do you want me to be angry at you? I mean, I will, I’m very happy to be absolutely furious with you, don’t get me wrong. I have a lot of reasons to be pissed. Frankly, I am looking forward to airing them out! But let me know, because if you want me to be pissed at you, there are a lot of ways to do that besides saying something as _shitty_ as that.” 

The words rattle around in her brain and they aren’t even new. They’re old words, and Vriska isn’t the first one to have said them; she’s said them to herself, hundreds of times, when wandering empty dreamscapes and wondering what would happen if she just — drifted an inch too close to the black hole, stopped looking, never bothered to go back home.

“No!” Vriska scrambles forward on hands and knees. It looks ridiculous. She’s dribbling blood all over the rough concrete slab they stand on. Terezi opens her arms and lets herself be cradled against her side anyway. “I didn’t mean — hey, look. Calm down. Calm down. Shh. Shhhh.”

Terezi breathes and breathes and breathes. She times her inhales and exhales to the swell and sink of Vriska’s chest against her shoulder, against her ear, and listens, listens, listens, to Vriska purr, like she would on the meteor, when they fell asleep curled up in a beanbag chair meant for one, too warm and too comfortable. Terezi is neither warm nor comfortable now.

“Of course they’d miss you,” Vriska amends, subdued. “But I mean. Not forever.” 

“What do you mean?”

“They’re God Tier,” she says carefully. “Half of them. Their lifespan is — look, you’ve got a good handful of years left ahead of you, Rez, being on the upper half of the ’spectrum, as you are — but they’re going to live so much longer. They’ve got forevers. You’ve got — what, a hundred left? A hundred ten?”

“The average lifespan of a tealblood,” Terezi says, numbly, “is one-hundred fifty sweeps.”

“There you go. And Rose, Dave, John? As many sweeps as this universe has left in it. God Tier. They’re _Gods._ They’ll miss you and cry about you and have a lot of pretty memorials in your honor and then they’ll forget. I’m being a shitty moirail to tell you so, but I’m — I’m giving you all the evidence. In my defense.”

“Drop the fucking legislacerator bullshit,” she croaks. “I’m not a wiggler anymore.”

Neither of them are. They are far, far too old for twenty sweeps.

“Okay. Sorry. Uh.” Vriska grabs a fistful of her hair and Terezi wrenches her wrist away. It’s unhealthy. She always does it. “My point isn’t to make you feel shitty, right? It’s to say that if you go back there, you’ll live out the rest of your life on a planet you don’t know full of people you couldn’t give less of a _shit_ about and then you’ll die and you’ll be remembered until they can’t remember why they cared. It’s shitty and it’s real and that’s the way things fucking _are_ , because the Game wasn’t fair and it’s still not fair, after we won it.” She clings to Terezi’s shoulders desperately, as if her life depends on winning this point, although it’s not an argument she need bother making. Terezi knows this.

“You’re God Tier, too,” she says. The words fall like lead between them. “What happens when you forget me?”

Vriska Serket without her, what does that look like? Maybe Vriska Serket without her is happier. Nobody nagging to change, nobody hauling her back towards people she hates, no more tiresome rules or self-conscious drains on her time. Maybe she’s —

“Won’t happen,” Vriska says eagerly. Excitedly. “Doesn’t have to happen. Out here, out here things are dissolving, yeah? These immortal ghosts, they’re dying by the minute.” Her fingers fidget against Terezi’s arm. “Black hole doesn’t care if you’re God Tier.” 

Terezi is mute until the idea registers.

“That’s fucked up,” she mumbles. “Real fucked up, Vriska.”

Vriska’s laugh lacks humor. “Fucked up solution to a fucked up problem. A negative times a negative is a positive.”

“Thought you wanted to live forever.”

She shrugs. “I thought so, too.” 

They’re silent for a while, then, too.

“You’re not killing yourself for me.”

“How you gonna stop me, asshole? You’ll be dead,” Vriska snaps.

Terezi swallows. “I did not come all this fucking way,” she says, “for you to kill yourself because of a shitty little thing like me dying.” 

Vriska makes a strangled noise and detaches herself. Her hands knot in her own hair, tugging, wrenching out strands of it. “There’s also the idea,” she cries, “that you don’t fucking know where people go when they die on this shithole, _do_ you?”

“No, but it’s not like we’ve had any fucking case studies!”

“Maybe they go _here!”_ She stabs a finger at the ground. “Maybe these pieces of eldritch shit still work the way they’re supposed to! I don’t know! Maybe _you’ll_ end up _here!”_

Terezi’s jaw snaps shut and she looks down, stares at the cerulean smears on her fists. 

Vriska breathes hard, claws a hunk of hair out of her face. She stares at Terezi with hungry, enraged eyes.

“You are infuriating,” Terezi says, at length, quietly.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“I kind of love you,” Terezi adds, and Vriska winces.

“Human word,” Terezi says. “Very lame. But I’ve been hanging with humans a lot, lately, so.” She shrugs. “That’s the way things are.”

Vriska shakes her head. “Lame.”

“I know. I thought you’d say that.” She scuffs her boot on the rock. They drift in between snatches of a forested dream bubble; she ducks under the roots of a wildly thrashing tree. “Thought a lot about what you’d say.” 

Vriska wipes the last of her blood from around her mouth and rises on shaky feet. “It’s okay if you don’t want to,” she concedes, refusing to meet Terezi’s eyes. “Figured it was a long shot, anyway.”

“Vriska,” Terezi says. “Vriska —” 

“What.”

“I came to bring you back.”

Vriska wrinkles her nose. “Why? Where?”

“Back to Earth C. The — the world that we built. You’re coming back to it. With me.”

She cocks her head. “But you’ll still die,” she says, as if it’s some grand refutation.

Terezi decides that she has had quite enough.

She has had quite a lot, to be fair. She has endured a _fuck_ ton of things. She, in Terezi’s defense, has gone through _two_ sessions of Sburb, killed her best friend, resuscitated her best friend, killed more monsters than she can count on the fingers she’s got left, lost her vision, learned to see without it, crippled her best friend, fell in love with her best friend, lost her, and went through hell to get them. 

“All right,” she says. “All right.”

She clears her throat.

“Fuck you,” she announces. “ _Fuck_ you, and fuck you a third time for what you just said, because it’s shitty. You know how many people have died? You know how many versions of _me_ have died? Just to get this fucking world on its feet? More than the trollish system of numbers can comfortably accommodate. Infinitely many people. _Infinitely_ many people have died trying to make this _shitty_ world exist, and now it does, and you have the fucking gall to refuse to be a part of it because it’s going to take one more?”

She stabs the ground with her cane. “I went through _hell_ to get here! I’ve been through hell and back trying to get you back, because I care about you. I care about you! You absolute asshole! You absolute shiteating fucker! Are you just now realizing that I’ll die? Are you just now realizing that sometimes, when trolls get very, very old, or very, very stupid, their bloodpushers tend to stop working? Did the past eleven sweeps not do _fucking enough_ to impress upon you the nature of mortality?” 

“It’s not the s—”

_“Shut the fuck up!”_ Terezi’s volume plummets to a hysterical whisper. “Shut the fuck up! I am not finished! I have waited eleven sweeps to say this! I am not finished!”

Vriska swallows, nods.

“I will die,” she says. “I will die. It will be shitty. I can guarantee you that it will be shittier for you than for me, granted that I die first — which isn’t guaranteed, by the way — and it will be, undoubtedly, the shittiest. You will not like it. You will probably throw a temper tantrum. But you _do not get_ to opt out of being a fucking troll just because you’re scared shitless that someday I’m going to stop existing and that idea makes you _sad.”_ Terezi jabs her finger into Vriska’s collarbone. “You have nothing to justify this kind of cowardice. _Nothing.”_

“It’s not cowardice.” 

“It is! It is exactly cowardice. And self-delusion, because whether or not you see it happen, I will die, all the same.” Terezi folds her arms. “So here’s what’s going to happen.

“You come back with me right now, and we do whatever you want for the remaining one hundred sweeps I think I can wrench out of this godforsaken universe, or I leave, and you spend your remaining infinity wondering whether or not I’ve died yet.” Terezi fishes in her pocket, brandishes a glinting silver coin. Her eyes glitter, hard and cold. “I can flip for you, if you’d like.” 

Vriska’s mouth moves silently.

Terezi tosses away the coin. “So?” She tries not to sound desperate. “What’s it gonna be? Because I — I am _done_ chasing after you.”

Vriska remains still and wordless.

Terezi’s shoulders sag. “Ah,” she says, and shrugs the jetpack more squarely onto her shoulders. “All right, then.” She shakes her head to clear it. “That’s fair.”

She turns and crouches to leap from the platform. 

It’s only half a second before a hand clamps down on her shoulder, wrenching her back. 

“I’ll go,” Vriska says. Her eyes dart from Terezi’s face to her feet, back again. “If only because you’re such an asshole about it.”

Terezi smiles weakly. “Good,” she says, because she can’t enunciate how she really feels, because neither of them have ever been all that good at that. Instead, “Good,” she repeats, and wraps her arms around Vriska’s neck. She holds her, gentle and soft and sweet, like she’d always meant to but never had the chance to, before. They stay like that for a while. 


End file.
